DraNet Enters Beta! High-Performance Networking in Kubernetes
by Antonio Ojea & Federico Bongiovanni, Kubernetes/GKE
We are excited to announce that DraNet has officially entered a beta state! This marks a major leap forward in our mission to streamline and enhance high-performance networking for AI and HPC workloads within Kubernetes. As we progress towards a stable General Availability (GA) release, we are eager to gather your feedback on the current state of the project.
Why DraNet?
DraNet was born from the lessons we learned at Google, observing the challenges end-users faced when running AI and HPC workloads on Kubernetes. The existing networking solutions, often repurposed from traditional networking or bespoke and complex, fell short of providing a good user experience and efficient operational models.
For instance, managing RDMA (Remote Direct Memory Access) interfaces often involved a complex combination of CNI chaining and device plugins. This not only created an unnecessary operational overhead for administrators but also led to coordination issues between different components that needed to work in harmony impacting resilience and scalability.
Another significant pain point we identified was the need for fine-grained interface tuning. AI workloads, for example, are extremely sensitive to latency. The presence of some eBPF programs on network interfaces, or the need to configure specific NIC parameters, could severely impact performance latency and/or throughput. Users were often forced to create custom init containers just to apply these settings, adding another layer of complexity.
Introducing DraNet: A Native and Declarative Solution
DraNet is a native integration with Kubernetes that uses the core Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) API to address these challenges by treating high-performance network interfaces as first-class citizens in Kubernetes. Here's how:
- Simplified RDMA Management: DraNet manages RDMA interfaces natively, handling the different requirements to offer a unified and seamless user experience. No more need for coordinating different components.
- Declarative Interface Tuning: With DraNet, you can declaratively set interface properties. Need to disable eBPF programs to reduce packet processing overhead or set specific NIC parameters? You can now do this directly in your Kubernetes manifests, eliminating the need for custom scripts or init containers.
- Standalone and Secure: DraNet is designed as a standalone binary, allowing it to run in a distroless container. This significantly reduces the attack surface and the frequency of security-related updates for the container image. By interacting directly with the kernel via stable APIs like netlink, it avoids dependencies on third-party projects, improving both resilience and performance.
- Lightweight and Fast: The DraNet container image, with a compressed size of less than 50MB, has a direct impact on node startup times, allowing for faster deployment and scaling of your workloads.
Beta Release and the Road to GA
DraNet is now in a beta state, signifying that it is ready for broader community testing and feedback. This move to beta is aligned with the maturation of the Kubernetes Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) KEP (KEP-4381), a foundational technology for DraNet. We are continuing our active development as we work towards a future General Availability release.
We Welcome Your Feedback and Contributions!
DraNet is an open-source project, and we believe that community involvement is key to its success. As we work towards our GA release, we welcome your feedback, whether it's on the design, user experience, or performance.
You can contribute in many ways:
- Code contributions: We have a fast-paced development cycle and welcome new contributors. Check out our contributing guidelines to get started.
- Documentation: Help us improve our documentation to make it easier for new users to get started with DraNet.
- Share your opinion: Your feedback is invaluable. Let us know how you are using DraNet and what we can do to make it better.
To learn more about DraNet and get started, please visit https://dranet.dev/. We look forward to building the future of high-performance networking in Kubernetes with you!
