ONTAP 9 Manuals ( CA08871-402 )

Learn about NFS over RDMA in ONTAP

NFS over RDMA uses RDMA-capable network adapters, allowing data to be copied directly between storage system memory and host system memory, circumventing CPU interruptions and overhead.

NFS over RDMA configurations are designed for customers with latency sensitive or high-bandwidth workloads such as machine learning and analytics. ONTAP NFS over RDMA can be used for any NFS based workloads. In addition, NVIDIA has extended NFS over RDMA to enable GPU Direct Storage (GDS). GDS further accelerates GPU-enabled workloads by bypassing the CPU and main memory altogether, using RDMA to transfer data between the storage system and GPU memory directly.

Beginning with ONTAP 9.10.1, NFS over RDMA configurations are supported for the NFSv4.0 protocol. Subsequent ONTAP releases introduced support for additional NFS versions.

Requirements
  • Ensure you are running the correct version of ONTAP for the NFS version you want to use.

    NFS version ONTAP support

    NFSv4.0

    ONTAP 9.10.1 and later

    NFSv4.1

    ONTAP 9.14.1 and later

    NFSv3

    ONTAP 9.15.1 and later

    • You can configure NFS over RDMA with ONTAP System Manager beginning with ONTAP 9.12.1. In ONTAP 9.10.1 and 9.11.1, you need to use the CLI to configure NFS over RDMA.

  • Both nodes in the high availability (HA) pair must be the same version.

  • Storage system controllers must support RDMA:

    Beginning with ONTAP…​ The following controllers support RDMA…​

    ONTAP 9.10.1 and later

    • ETERNUS AX4100

    ONTAP 9.14.1 and later

    • ETERNUS AC series

    ONTAP 9.16.1 and later

    • ETERNUS AX1300

    • ETERNUS AX2300

    • ETERNUS AX4200

  • Data LIFs must be configured to support RDMA.

  • For information on client operating systems supported by NFS over RDMA, please contact our support. For RoCE v2 supported RNICs, refer to the respective RNIC vendor documentation.

Interface groups are not supported with NFS over RDMA.
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