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Beginner_in_FPGA's avatar
Beginner_in_FPGA
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2 years ago
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Host Server Requirements for N6000-PL Open FPGA Stack

Hi,

I will be beginning to develop an AFU for the Intel OFS for the N6000-PL in the realms of Encryption/Decryption and Compression/Decompression. I went over the Host Server Requirements mentioned in the Intel OFS guide, is there any other considerations other than this for the same as I will be ordering a Host server soon.

I couldn't find much information on the BMC of the server motherboard and the BIOS version of the same. Could you please guide me as to what are the strict requirements needed for the same.

The requirements that I have figured out till now

1) Server should contain 128 Gb of RAM.
2) Server must be able to fit and cool N6000-PL
3) Power Supply with 12 V Auxiliary 2X4 Power
4) Red Hat 8.6 Kernel 6.1-lts
5) Intel Vt for Directed I/O (VT-d) must be enabled
6) PCIe slot must have IOMMU
7) PCIe slot must be gen 4 ( N6000-PL is a gen 4 platform )
PCIe slot width must bifurcate into x8/x8

If u find anything missing could you please advice me on the same.

Thank you,
Best Regards,
Beginner_in_FPGA

Ofs
  • KianHinT_altera's avatar
    KianHinT_altera
    2 years ago

    Hi,

    Generally you already covered the system requirements section based on the OFS guide. As we cant determine which Bios FW to use except for the server that Intel tested on (supermicro) , you just need to ensure these settings are available on the server that you have chosen.

    BMC server not really important in my opinion, just if you doing a lot of remote server work, make sure you can remote configure/upgrade and monitor the server status/screen via the BMC/CPLD

    Settings in bios:

    • fan speed adjustment to cool the FPGA card
    • PCIe slot must be bifurcated x8 / x8
    • PCIe slot speed must be set to Gen 5 (optional- even though guide says gen5 , since card is gen4 )
    • PCIe slot must have iommu enabled
    • Intel VT for Directed I/O (VT-d) must be enabled (CPU, motherboard/chipset)

    On top of it , if you're planning to run multiple fpga cards in the server , do ensure the power supply wattage level is sufficient.

    Do ensure disk space sufficient as well for Quartus and other design tools that you might use.

    Basically that's it

    Thanks

    Regards

    Kian

4 Replies

  • KianHinT_altera's avatar
    KianHinT_altera
    Icon for Frequent Contributor rankFrequent Contributor
    2 years ago

    Hi,

    Generally you already covered the system requirements section based on the OFS guide. As we cant determine which Bios FW to use except for the server that Intel tested on (supermicro) , you just need to ensure these settings are available on the server that you have chosen.

    BMC server not really important in my opinion, just if you doing a lot of remote server work, make sure you can remote configure/upgrade and monitor the server status/screen via the BMC/CPLD

    Settings in bios:

    • fan speed adjustment to cool the FPGA card
    • PCIe slot must be bifurcated x8 / x8
    • PCIe slot speed must be set to Gen 5 (optional- even though guide says gen5 , since card is gen4 )
    • PCIe slot must have iommu enabled
    • Intel VT for Directed I/O (VT-d) must be enabled (CPU, motherboard/chipset)

    On top of it , if you're planning to run multiple fpga cards in the server , do ensure the power supply wattage level is sufficient.

    Do ensure disk space sufficient as well for Quartus and other design tools that you might use.

    Basically that's it

    Thanks

    Regards

    Kian

    • KianHinT_altera's avatar
      KianHinT_altera
      Icon for Frequent Contributor rankFrequent Contributor
      2 years ago

      Hi,

      Is there anything else I could help you with on this case?

      Thanks

      Regards

      Kian

  • KianHinT_altera's avatar
    KianHinT_altera
    Icon for Frequent Contributor rankFrequent Contributor
    2 years ago

    Hi,

    I’m glad that your question has been addressed. If you have a new question, please login to ‘https://supporttickets.intel.com’, view details of the desire request, and post a feed/response within the next 15 days to allow me to continue to support you. After 15 days, this thread will be transitioned to community support. The community users will be able to help you on your follow-up questions.

    Thanks

    Regards

    Kian