White Papers

QAT Whitepaper

2. Intel

QAT on MX7000

This section includes several examples of Intel

QAT applications, but this list of potential uses of Intel

QAT is by no

means exhaustive. Drivers and APIs are available for custom applications that require encryption or compression.

Not included in this section is the NGINX web server, which has been integrated with Intel

QAT encryption and PKE

for superior performance measured in connections per second. Also, the commonly used encryption library Openssl

has been modified to utilize Intel

QAT.

2.1 Lab Setup

The basis for these experiments was the MX7000 series blade server product line. The blade chassis hosts eight

two-socket sleds in a 7U space, depicted in Figure 1. For the compression experiment, only one sled was necessary.

For the IPSec experiment, two blades were connected through the IOM (input/output module, which serves as the

aggregate networking switch for the blades in the chassis). In both cases, an MX740c was used, depicted in Figure 2.

It should be noted that there are many other beneficial applications of this technology, as stated (for example,

web server applications that offload key exchange and encryption).

Figure 1 – MX7000 chassis Figure 2 – MX740c

The pertinent internal connections are represented in Figure 3 and Figure 4. Each sled plugs in directly to the IOMs;

there is no midplane. This ensures signal integrity for speed upgrades well into the future. Fabric A was used as the

“east-west” connection between the two blades in the IPSec experiment.

Figure 3 – MX7000 components Figure 4 – Fabric A and B Interconnect