- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/efa.html
- https://docs.aws.amazon.com/batch/latest/userguide/efa.html
- An Elastic Fabric Adapter (EFA) is a network device that you can attach to your Amazon EC2 instance to accelerate High Performance Computing (HPC) and machine learning applications
- EFA provides lower and more consistent latency and higher throughput than the TCP transport traditionally used in cloud-based HPC systems. It enhances the performance of inter-instance communication that is critical for scaling HPC and machine learning applications. It is optimized to work on the existing AWS network infrastructure and it can scale depending on application requirements
-
EFA is available as an optional
EC2 networking feature that you can enable on any supported EC2 instance at no
additional cost. Plus, it works with the most commonly used interfaces, APIs,
and libraries for inter-node communications, so you can migrate your HPC
applications to AWS with little or no modifications
-
An EFA is an Elastic Network
Adapter (ENA) with added capabilities. It provides all of the functionality of
an ENA, with an additional OS-bypass functionality. OS-bypass is an access
model that allows HPC and machine learning applications to communicate directly
with the network interface hardware to provide low-latency, reliable transport
functionality
-
The OS-bypass capabilities of
EFAs are not supported on Windows instances. If you attach an EFA to a Windows
instance, the instance functions as an Elastic Network Adapter, without the
added EFA capabilities
