Overview

DOCA Platform Framework (DPF) streamlines the provisioning and orchestration of NVIDIA BlueField DPUs in Kubernetes environments. It supports scalable deployment and management of DPUs and the services running on them.

Manage the lifecycle of the DPU hardware and its Kubernetes orchestration system.

1. User creates a DPUSet and BFB object representing a set of DPUs they want to run services on.

2. DPUSet controller creates a DPU object based on the DPUSet NodeSelector.

3. DPU controller deploys DMS and communicates the BFB and other configuration to it.

4. DMS installs BFB to the DPU over rshim.

5. The DPU node joins the DPU control plane.

Orchestrate DOCA Services to run on DPUs.

1. User creates a DPUService referencing a helm chart.

2. DPUService controller creates an ArgoCD Application representing the DPUService.

3. ArgoCD system syncs the Application to the DPU Cluster.

4. A Pod for the DPUService runs on the DPU Node.

Orchestrate Service Chains for advanced network flows through DPUs.

1. User creates DPUServiceInterface, DPUServiceChain, DPUServiceIPAM representing ovs ports, ovs flows and CNI IPAM.

2. Service Function Chain controllers sync these objects to the DPUCluster.

3. ServiceInterface controller creates OVS ports for the Service Function Chain

4. ServiceChain controller creates OVS flows for the Service Function Chain

5. NVIPAM allocates an IP Pool for the Service Function Chain

6. User creates a DPUService for the ServiceFunctionChain

Offload primary and secondary network to the DPU

1. User deploys OVN Kubernetes as the primary CNI

2. User creates OVN Kubernetes DPUService

3. DPUService controller and ArgoCD sync the OVNKubernetes DPUService to the DPUNode

4. OVN is the primary network which links workload pods with the ServiceFunctionChains operating on the DPU node

5. All pods get a VF from the Bluefield which is used for the primary network

6. OVN processing offloaded to DPU

7. Other network functions - like an BGP router and L3 firewall using HBN - can be added to the service chain for a pod.