This article series is in the Communication and System Design topics within our Series Library
The title of the series is a play on the popular television series Have Gun – Will Travel that starred Richard Boone who played “Paladin," a gentleman investigator/gunfighter who solved problems in the Old West. The Paladin in SmartNICs is the FPGA that allows the network interface adapters to process data streams in real time. SmartNICs can handle chores from storage management, data compression, and encryption to machine-learning analysis of the data stream. Fun fact: Two dozen of the 225 episodes of Have Gun – Will Travel were written by Gene Roddenberry of Star Trek fame.
This collection of articles examines the technology including its implementation and effects.
- What Makes a SmartNIC Smart?
- Why is a SmartNIC Better than a Regular NIC?
- SmartNIC Architectures: A Shift to Accelerators and Why FPGAs are Poised to Dominate
- How PCIe 5 with CXL, CCIX, and SmartNICs Will Change Solution Acceleration
- SmartNIC Architectures: The Future is a Portable Architecture
- SmartNIC Architectures: Landscape Update