Kubernetes FPGA acceleration for the Waveform Architecture in Virtualized Ecosystems (WAVE)

SATCOM FPGA acceleration made simple with the SR-IOV Virtualization Function Framework (SVFF)

SR-IOV Virtualization Function Framework (SVFF) is an FPGA virtualization framework aiming to enable FPGA acceleration in highly virtualized environments. It is based on SR-IOV, and for this reason it is easily portable on different CPU/FPGA architectures.

The IEEE Waveform Architecture for Virtualized Ecosystems (WAVE) initiative aims at reinventing the SATCOM industry inspired from the NFV/SDV world, and it is looking at solutions like SVFF to enable the optimal performance/flexibility for Satellite Communication applications.

Virtual Open Systems is following WAVE activities since its inception and is today a member of the consortium. With this demonstration, the company aims at proving the feasibility of the WAVE approach showing a first integration of FPGA virtualization with Kubernetes, the well known open source cloud container management solution.

More in detail, the video presents the execution of two Kubernetes guests that can be easily configured to change FPGA hardware accelerators. We have installed two different Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) accelerators on a Xilinx U55C FPGA and we are able to attach them to Kubevirt guests via a custom Kubernetes plugin. Kubervirt, the solution that strengthens applications security in Kubernetes executing them in VM, is supported and can optionally be disabled.

The SVFF Kubernetes plugin is today a work in progress that will be enhanced with FPGA resource monitoring, FPGA allocation automation and orchestrated partial reconfiguration support.