Why HPE Aruba Networking is part of the journey with Ultra Ethernet Consortium

[NetworkExperts]

 By Steve Smith, Senior Product Manager, Hewlett Packard Enterprise. 

"Steve specializes in driving DC switching products and solutions to meet customer business values."

The Ultra Ethernet Consortium (UEC) was officially launched in July 2023 and was formed to develop Ethernet specifications that empower AI and high performance computing (HPC) environments with next-level performance, scalability, and interoperability. Hewlett Packard Enterprise was one of the original founders of the UEC and contributed much of the foundational IP that will show up in revision 1.0 of the UEC specification. The UEC is paving the way for seamless data exchange and computation in the digital realm for some of the most important workloads in the IT industry today. The Ultra Ethernet Transport (UET), which is part of the UEC, focuses on creating a new, optimized Layer 4 transport to enhance both AI and high performance computing (HPC) workloads. Congestion control is one of the primary technologies defined by the UET, with the goal to help maximize link utilization. Supporting this, Dynamic Load Balancing (DLB) is ideal for achieving efficient load balancing and preventing congestion in RoCE v2 networks. As HPE Aruba Networking CX switches integrates solutions with HPE AI/HPC, these switches are excited to be part of this transformation with UEC. HPE is a founding member of the Ultra Ethernet Consortium and has been collaborating with other member institutions in the community to develop the standards needed to optimize Ethernet for the rapidly evolving AI and HPC workloads.

HPE Aruba Networking CX switches are designed to be UEC-ready, making it easy to adopt the new UEC protocol quickly and seamlessly with both your existing and new solutions. Many of the mandatory capabilities are supported today, including Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN). ECN notifies networks about congestion with the goal of reducing packet loss and delay by making the sending device decrease the transmission rate until the congestion clears, without dropping packets. Included in the additional supported features is DLB, which has been added into our HPE Aruba Networking CX switches for data center.

DLB enhances equal-cost multipath (ECMP). ECMP typically uses a hashing algorithm to load share the traffic across multiple links on a per-hop decision. DLB looks at link utilization and rebalances flows based on path utilization allowing for more efficient forwarding and reduces congestion. The HPE Aruba Networking CX 9300 Switch Series supports DLB that is based on flowlets or packet spraying. The CX 9300 also uses fast link failover (FLF) with DLB to move traffic to a less congested link when that current link fails. The CX 9300 DLB supports AI and HPC networks using DLB to help control congestion in the network.

Other optional features, such as packet trimming, are being reviewed for possible addition into the HPE Aruba Networking CX switches for data center. As the UEC continues to reshape Ethernet to support HPC and AI applications that demand the need for increased network performance and efficiency, HPE continues to review and may support on select HPE Aruba Networking CX switches in the future.

HPE Aruba Networking CX switches helps architect your network for ultimate reliability, precise control, and peak performance. As you deploy your AI network, you can enable DLB for those AI workloads. As the UEC standards are ratified, HPE Aruba Networking CX switches continue reviewing those standards and look for possible inclusion into select HPE Aruba Networking CX switches exploring the full potential of Ultra Ethernet and optimizing your fabric to future-proof your infrastructure.

Learn more at: HPE Aruba Networking CX switches