Question nVidia Bluefield-2 is a bomb - but a few questions remain...

Aug 17, 2024
39
1
35
  1. Where would homelab builder get it cheaply ? I'd expect that its extra intelligence would come handy at ISP level point for firewalling, traffic shaping, QoS and some essential outward facing services, like DNS etc. For that, one might want 25GbE models, but prices are ... spicey. OTOH one can find 200GBE options like this much cheaper: BLueField-2 200GbE for $230ish new . Is there a source of new or used BF-2 stuff with more consistent prices ?
  2. BF-2 runs Linux onboard AFAIK. People say there are many available flavors (Debian, Ubuntu etc). IS there a how-to for compiling and rolling one's own ? Hwo far can this go ? Can one have his own latest-and-greatest kernel ?
  3. Can BF-2 25GbE do also Ethernet 2.5/5GbE with appropriate adapters ?
  4. Onboard PCie root complex - can it also be configured to work as a target, so the card can be plugged into x86 host ?
  5. Is there more info about that 30-pin debug connector at the top? It looks like it contains a bunch of GPIO pins that could be put to good use
  6. Is expanding RAM(by replacing onboard chips) a viable option ?
  7. What accelerator exactly are onboard and what exactly can they do ? Is this info available or is this guarded secret and all the user can get to see is a library ?
 
Last edited:
They are not smart and have no accelerators.

I'm looking for something that can economically implement firewall, QoS and router at ISP entrypoint.

Since they've just crossed the threshold of 1G optics ( people are getting 2+Gb/s and some even up to 10Gb/s speeds, one would need 2.5/5/10 PHY for that.

Such solution would also need to be cheap or at least affordable, compact, robust and energy efficient.