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What is the relation of Xilin's Onload and Solarflare OpenOnload

Are they the samething? If not, what is their difference and relation.

I saw that Xilin acquired Solarflare, and I am confused by a lot of sources:

  1. If I open the onload project page, its README just at the same time refer to both terms

OpenOnload

Onload is a high performance user-level network stack, which accelerates TCP and UDP network I/O for applications using the BSD sockets on Linux.

  1. If I open onload user guide, the table of contents lists versions of OpenOnload

  2. openonload has a different project page, and is owned by majek. It looks like OpenOnload is contrasting EnterpriseOnload. Are they both a branch of "Onload"?

Is there any difference when using them?

Solution

  • They are the same software, Xilinx bought Solarflare and inherited their OpenOnload and EnterpriseOnload software. Xilinx was then subsequently bought by AMD. The term "Onload" collectively refers to both the Open- and Enterprise- versions since they use the same code base.

    EnterpriseOnload uses an extended test cycle and offers longer term support for users with an active enterprise support agreement. This means AMD offer bug fix releases for a longer period of time for a given major release version as compared to the OpenOnload offering. OpenOnload gets new features quicker though.

    The repository by majek isn't an official one and is several releases behind the one from Xilinx/AMD. That being available at https://github.com/Xilinx-CNS/onload. I'd highlight that as of Onload 8 the TCPDirect software isn't part of the Onload package but downloaded separately, whereas previously it was a library supplied in the Onload download.