Nitro vs Bare Metal?

[wangyinfeng]

However, it was the C5 instance, released just this month, that was first to offload the entire EC2 stack -- from networking and storage to management, security and monitoring -- onto dedicated hardware. Developed using technology AWS acquired in 2015 when it purchased Annapurna Labs, the C5 marked the debut of the "new EC2 hypervisor," DeSantis said.

[wangyinfeng]

Cloud应用场景中，offload到ASIC是趋势，还是DPDK,SPDK承载到server是趋势？
如果硬件能够提供一定的flexible，且成本低于几个CPU核，大规模情况下是有更高性价比的；

大厂已经意识到offload是趋势，看AWS，Azure

DPDK is a one time benefit, NIC throughput is still growing faster than CPUs are adding cores or than cores are getting faster – the trendline is not good over time (100G? 200G? 400G?)

[wangyinfeng]

In early2015, Amazon acquired Annapurna Labs, and the C5 instance is the first instance to use the new hardware and custom ASIC they developed. This new ASIC is where the AWS hypervisor runs, leaving almost all of the CPU and RAM capacity available to run workloads.

Amazon also developed a new hypervisor to run on this hardware — the Nitro hypervisor — built from the ground-up using KVM components

And whatever we do build with commercial hardware and products will never match the breadth and depth of the AWS services.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/aws-leaps-further-ahead-nitro-boost-paul-liversidge

[wangyinfeng]

AWS早在2013年推出的C3虛擬機器實例，就是採用了Nitro架構，當時Nitro最先實現的就是網路硬體功能，這也正是C3實例最大的特色，網路頻寬提高了2成，延遲時間也減少了一半。不過，當時AWS沒有透露Nitro系統的存在，只是強調技術創新才能提供這款C3實例。

Nitro之所以先實現網路功能，Peter Desantis解釋，因為網路功能是EC2服務中負載最大的一項服務，也是最能凸顯VM效能的基礎架構功能。

2014年發表的C4實例，是下一個採用Nitro的EC2服務，這款實例的特色是儲存優化，因為AWS進一步將儲存處理機制也硬體化放入了Nitro系統中。這項調整，除了讓EBS區塊級儲存服務自動最佳化，還節省了不少原本EC2主機儲存處理時消耗的CPU資源，讓C4的運算效能提高了12％。

C5是AWS第一個完全將EC2軟體層放入Nitro硬體層的實例，也因此，原本在EC2主機上的Hypervisor虛擬層軟體可以更為輕量化，改採用了新的Nitro Hypervisor軟體。

在Nitro系統中，除了CPU採用主流商用處理器之外，網路功能、儲存功能、管理機制、雲端監控機制，全部都是一張張硬體Nitro卡，再搭配專屬的安全晶片。換句話說，AWS將原本用來管理商用x86伺服器的IaaS軟體功能，都變成了硬體晶片，等於重新打造了一款雲端專用的特殊規格伺服器。