NAME

       mlx5dv - Direct verbs for mlx5 devices
       This  is  low  level  access  to  mlx5 devices to perform data path operations, without general branching
       performed by ibv_post_send(3).

DESCRIPTION

       The libibverbs API is an abstract one. It is agnostic to any underlying provider specific implementation.
       While this abstraction has the advantage of user applications portability it has a  performance  penalty.
       For some applications optimizing performance is more important than portability.

       The  mlx5  direct  verbs  API is intended for such applications.  It exposes mlx5 specific low level data
       path (send/receive/completion) operations, allowing the application to bypass the  libibverbs  data  path
       API.

       This  interface  consists  from  one  hardware  specific  header  file with relevant inline functions and
       conversion logic from ibverbs structures to mlx5 specific structures.

       The direct include of mlx5dv.h together with linkage to  mlx5  library  will  allow  usage  of  this  new
       interface.

       Once  an  application  uses  the  direct  flow the locking scheme is fully managed by itself. There is an
       expectation that no mixed flows in the data path for  both  direct/non-direct  access  will  be  by  same
       application.

NOTES

       All Mellanox NIC devices starting from Connect-IB (Connect-IB, ConnectX-4, ConnectX-4Lx, ConnectX-5, ...)
       implement  the mlx5 API, thus using the mlx5 direct verbs does not limit the applications to a single NIC
       HW device thus keeping some level of portability.

SEE ALSO

       ibv_post_send(3), verbs(7), mlx5dv_is_supported(3)

AUTHORS

       Leon Romanovsky <leonro@mellanox.com>

1.0.0                                              2017-02-02                                          MLX5DV(7)