[benlwalker]

I don't get it either, and I'm a maintainer of SPDK which provides multiple implementations of virtualized devices and is frequently used inside DPUs to present storage devices.

If I'm implementing a hardware device anyway, why would I not just use NVMe as the interface? NVMe is superior to virtio-blk in every way that I can think of.

Even for a software device in userspace, why not use a technology like vfio-user to present an NVMe device, or just use vhost-user to present the virtio-blk device?

I've never really been able to get a clear value proposition for vDPA for storage laid out for me. Maybe I'm missing something critical - it's certainly possible.

[lathiat]

Another top-level comment has covered this at least with regards to networking, hasn't discussed the storage side as much: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39355644

[benlwalker]

Yes, I've seen some clearer cases made for networking. In networking there is no standard for the hardware interface. Every vendor does their own thing. Except many can at least handle virtqueues carrying virtio-net messages for the data path, so some framework like vDPA may make sense (I'd prefer to see a full NIC interface standard emerge instead).

In storage, however, the industry has agreed on NVMe. This is a full standard for control and data plane. All storage products on the market, including DPUs and SmartNICs, just present NVMe devices. So there's no case to be made for vDPA at all. It just isn't necessary.

[sgarzare]

Yes, I see your point and agree that NVMe can be used for the same purpose. But several HW vendors have implemented virtio-net devices in their SmartNic and may find it convenient to support virtio-blk to reuse most of the building blocks.

As for vhost-user, it's perfect for VM use cases, but with containers or applications in the host, it's not easy to use. Whereas, a vDPA device (HW or SW) can easily be attached to the host kernel (using the virtio-vdpa bus) and be managed with the standard virtio-blk driver.