Quick Concepts Part 1 – Introduction to RDMA

This is the first post in a three post series on getting started. By the end of the getting started series my goal is to get you ready to start coding with a sample program that will demonstrate the performance benefits of RDMA. In this post I will review RDMA concepts in a simple minded way. Later I intend to come back and do more detailed posts on each concept.

What is RDMA

RDMA is Remote Dynamic Memory Access which is a way of moving buffers between two applications across a network. RDMA differs from traditional network interfaces because it bypasses the operating system. This allows programs that implement RDMA to have:

1. The absolute lowest latency
2. The highest throughput
3. Smallest CPU footprint

How Can We Use It

To make use of RDMA we need to have a network interface card that implements an RDMA engine.

We call this an HCA…