FPGAs in the Cloud

Abstract

As cloud computing grows, the types of computational hardware available in the cloud are diversifying. Field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) are a relatively new addition to high-performance computing in the cloud, with the ability to accelerate a range of different applications, and the flexibility to offer different cloud computing models. A new and growing configuration is to have the FPGAs directly connected to the network and thus reduce the latency in delivering data to processing elements. We survey the state of the art in FPGAs in the cloud and present the Open Cloud Testbed, a testbed for research and experimentation into new cloud platforms, which includes network-attached FPGAs in the cloud.