A Chronological Analysis of the Evolution of SmartNICs

TL;DR

This paper provides a chronological review of SmartNICs over 15 years, analyzing their evolution, manufacturers, use cases, and application domains to clarify their development and current state.

Contribution

It offers the first comprehensive timeline-based analysis of SmartNICs, highlighting key trends, technological advancements, and industry adoption over 370 articles from 2010 to 2024.

Findings

SmartNICs have evolved significantly in capabilities and complexity.

Major manufacturers have driven innovation in SNIC technology.

Use cases have expanded from basic networking to advanced data processing.

Abstract

Network Interface Cards (NICs) are one of the key enablers of the modern Internet. They serve as gateways for connecting computing devices to networks for the exchange of data with other devices. Recently, the pervasive nature of Internet-enabled devices coupled with the growing demands for faster network access have necessitated the enhancement of NICs to Smart NICs (SNICs), capable of processing enormous volumes of data at near real-time speed. However, despite their popularity, the exact use and applicability of SNICs remains an ongoing debate. These debates are exacerbated by the incorporation of accelerators into SNIC, allowing them to relieve their host's CPUs of various tasks. In this work, we carry out a chronological analysis of SNICs, using 370 articles published in the past 15 years, from 2010 to 2024, to gain some insight into SNICs; and shed some light on their evolution, manufacturers, use cases, and application domains.