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AWS announces EFA update for scalability with AI/ML applications

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AWS has announced an update to the Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) for improved scalability with AI/ML applications. The new "EFA-only" interface decouples EFA from the Elastic Network Adapter (ENA), allowing you to create a standalone EFA device on secondary interfaces.

Specifically, the article covers:

  • The EFA provides high-bandwidth, low-latency networking crucial for scaling AI/ML workloads.
  • The previous coupling of EFA with ENA consumed IP addresses, limiting scalability and causing routing challenges in Linux.
  • The new "EFA-only" interface uses the Scalable Reliable Datagram (SRD) protocol, which operates over MAC addresses without requiring IP addresses.
  • EFA-only interfaces can be configured as secondary interfaces, with the primary interface being either EFA+ENA or just ENA for TCP/IP routing.
  • EFA-only is available on all EFA-supported instances across all AWS Regions, including GovCloud and China Regions, at no additional cost.
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