Deployment Profiles
A profile is a named combination of fabric and deployment type. Each profile maps to a complete set of Kubernetes manifests produced by l8k generate. Pick a profile from the decision tree or table below, then follow the link.
For the conceptual difference between fabric and deployment type, see Overview.
Fabric is determined by the underlying hardware topology (Spectrum-X clusters are detected as a distinct fabric, not as a flavour of Ethernet). Pick the deployment type for each fabric:
flowchart TD
Start{Fabric}
Start -->|Ethernet| EthDT{Deployment type}
Start -->|InfiniBand| IBDT{Deployment type}
Start -->|Spectrum-X<br/>HW topology| SPCXRA{RA version}
EthDT -->|sriov| SRIOVE([SR-IOV Ethernet])
EthDT -->|host_device| HDE([Host Device])
EthDT -->|rdma_shared + MacVLAN| MV([MacVLAN RDMA Shared])
IBDT -->|sriov| SRIOVIB([SR-IOV InfiniBand])
IBDT -->|host_device| HDI([Host Device])
IBDT -->|rdma_shared + IPoIB| IPOIB([IPoIB RDMA Shared])
SPCXRA -->|RA2.1<br/>Network Operator 26.1| SX1([Spectrum-X RA2.1])
SPCXRA -->|RA2.2<br/>Network Operator 26.4| SX2([Spectrum-X RA2.2])
SX1 --> MPM[multiplane mode<br/>swplb / hwplb / uniplane / none<br/>+ number of planes]
SX2 --> MPM
classDef profile fill:#a2efb6,stroke:#28a745,color:#000
classDef params fill:#fff3cd,stroke:#ffc107,color:#000
class SRIOVE,HDE,MV,SRIOVIB,HDI,IPOIB,SX1,SX2 profile
class MPM params
Profile | When to use | Fabric / Deployment type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|
| SR-IOV Ethernet | High-performance Ethernet networking with hardware acceleration. Per-pod dedicated VFs. | ethernet / sriov | SR-IOV, RDMA, low-latency, dedicated VFs |
| SR-IOV InfiniBand | Virtualized InfiniBand with hardware acceleration. Isolated IB partitions per pod. | infiniband / sriov | SR-IOV, InfiniBand, large-scale HPC |
| Host Device | Direct hardware passthrough. Minimal CPU overhead. Exclusive device access per pod. | ethernet or infiniband / host_device | host-device, PCI-passthrough, DPDK |
| IP over InfiniBand (RDMA Shared) | InfiniBand networking with shared RDMA resources. Parallel I/O workloads. | infiniband / rdma_shared | IPoIB, shared-device, high-bandwidth |
| MacVLAN (RDMA Shared) | Multi-tenant Ethernet with shared RDMA capabilities and network isolation. | ethernet / rdma_shared | MacVLAN, multi-tenant, network-segmentation |
| Spectrum-X | NVIDIA Spectrum-X multi-rail AI interconnect (RA2.1 or RA2.2). HWPLB (tech preview) / SWPLB / Uniplane / None modes. | ethernet / sriov / spectrum-x | Spectrum-X, multiplane, RA2.2, HWPLB |
Overview — profile selection vocabulary
Generate Workflow — how profile flags are consumed
Heterogeneous Clusters — mixing profiles per node group