Network Interface Cards (NICs) are essential hardware components that provide servers with dedicated network connections. Traditional NICs are simple devices attached to a server that are used to receive packets from the network and place them in the server's memory.
An advanced version, known as SmartNICs, combines networking capabilities with onboard processing power, allowing tasks to be offloaded from the server’s Central Processing Unit (CPU) to specialized hardware. This offload boosts performance and strengthens network security.
While SmartNICs offer clear advantages, they are often challenging to acquire and learning resources for them remain limited. Integrated Information Technology Assistant Professor Elie Kfoury recently began a project to help address the knowledge gap in this emerging technology.
Kfoury is leading a three-year, $1 million National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project to advance cybertraining on SmartNICs. IIT Professor Jorge Crichigno is co-principal investigator, while the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Internet2 are collaborators.
Large companies such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon are using SmartNICs in their cloud networks.
“The infrastructure workloads are offloaded from the general-purpose CPUs to the SmartNICs,” Kfoury says. “As a result, the performance and the security are improved. Further, the CPU cycles on the servers are freed, which generates more revenue for cloud operators.”
But most universities, research labs and small companies have yet to benefit from SmartNICs due to the technical barriers and lack of guidance for IT professionals. This was Kfoury’s motivation to develop training materials on SmartNICs in the form of virtual labs and companion material that will be hosted on web-based platforms.
“The main barrier with SmartNICs is the technical knowledge required," Kfoury explains. “We identified this trend early on and built up the expertise to facilitate the adoption of SmartNICs.”
SmartNICs will be installed on the University of South Carolina’s network to support training in the research community, targeting cyberinfrastructure professionals, developers and network owners. The virtual labs will offer hands-on training on implementing offloaded applications across different SmartNIC platforms.
“There is a vast amount of data that servers need to process, and general-purpose CPUs often struggle to keep up with large data volumes. SmartNICs can help bridge this gap by offloading the computations from the server’s CPU to the specialized hardware, enabling faster and more efficient data processing,” Kfoury says.
Kfoury added that the project’s training materials will target diverse audiences, including those interested in developing code from scratch, such as researchers and software engineers, and those who aim to deploy existing code, like network operators.
Kfoury has already begun leading workshops and webinars with the goal of introducing the training material and getting people on board with SmartNICs. In addition, the virtual labs will be incorporated into courses offered at USC.
“The training material is geared toward advanced networking topics. The material will eventually be integrated into our curriculum. Once the material is ready, it will be available to students who use the testbed and run experiments,” Kfoury says.
A portion of the grant will be used to purchase SmartNICs that will be installed on FABRIC, a $20 million nationwide testbed funded by the NSF. The testbed seeks to enable cutting-edge and exploratory research at-scale in networking, cybersecurity, distributed computing and storage systems, machine learning, and science applications.
“A researcher will be able to conduct experiments that use SmartNICs on FABRIC,” Kfoury says. “The training materials that will be developed will be accessible to all FABRIC users.”
Another part of the project is a collaboration with Internet2, a non-profit advanced technology community that provides a secure high-speed national network, eduroam global Wi-Fi access service, cloud solutions, research support, and services and training tailored for research and education. Through their partnership with the Minority Serving-Cyberinfrastructure Consortium (MS-CC), and with funding support from the NSF, the consortium promotes advanced cyberinfrastructure capabilities on the campus of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Tribal Colleges and Universities.
“The MS-CC team develops training and skilling opportunities to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Tribal Colleges and Universities with their cyberinfrastructure planning,” says Ana Hunsinger, vice president of community engagement at Internet2 and PI for the MS-CC. “This is a great collaboration opportunity with USC to support SmartNICs training that can advance campus cyberinfrastructure strategies at our institutions.”
As Kfoury’s team develops training materials and leads workshops and webinars, demand for SmartNICs continues to grow alongside their technological evolution.
“At our workshops, we often see participants from operational networks, including those running networks at national labs and Internet service providers,” Kfoury says. “While they bring valuable experience, many are new to SmartNICs, and I’m always eager to hear their perspectives on how this technology can benefit their networks.”
Crichigno adds that the project is a testament to the high level of technical expertise of the university’s Cyberinfrastructure Lab (CI-Lab). Over the last six years, the CI-Lab has developed training material used worldwide, including virtual lab libraries and companion books, and tutorials. The material is used by colleges and universities, national laboratories, research and education networks, military-connected communities, and IT learners.
“Dr. Kfoury’s expertise has been instrumental in leading the development of many libraries and delivering dozens of workshops across the U.S. This key project will train IT professionals on how to use a revolutionary technology (SmartNICs) that will be increasingly important in the near future for the computing industry,” Crichigno says.
Kfoury explains that SmartNICs have the potential to address critical challenges, like processing packets at line rate and performing per-packet computations. His primary interest lies in pushing the limits of SmartNICs to enhance security, resilience, and performance.
“New technologies often come with a learning curve,” Kfoury says. “I’m excited to see how SmartNICs will be leveraged in operational networks and the tangible improvements they bring in terms of security, efficiency, and performance.”