Resources
Welcome to the OCP Networking Project’s workstream Ethernet Scale-up Networking (ESUN)
The OCP Community now has the opportunity to work on areas that address scale-up connectivity across accelerated AI infrastructure, where the scale-up domain in XPU-based systems can be viewed in two primary areas: 1) endpoint/XPU functionality and 2) network functionality.
First, in the endpoint/XPU domain, the design depends on factors such as workload partitioning, memory ordering, and load balancing, and it is often tightly co-designed with the XPU architecture itself. OCP’s Networking Project now has efforts to advance the endpoint functionality for scale-up networking through a SUE-Transport workstream (SUE has been renamed and clarified now as SUE-T), to carry forward the work seeded with the contribution of its version 1.0 specification. The SUE-T workstream can be found here.
Second, the network side of scale-up, by contrast, focuses on how traffic is sent out across the network switches themselves, including protocol headers, error handling, and lossless data transfer. This is what ESUN (this workstream) addresses and what we will focus on.
As usual at OCP, this workstream is open to the public and we want to welcome all those who would like to be involved.
Disclaimer: Please do not submit any confidential information to the Project Community. All presentation materials, proposals, meeting minutes and/or supporting documents are published by OCP and are open to the public in accordance to OCP’s Bylaws and IP Policy. This can be found on the OCP OCP Policies page. If you have any questions please contact OCP.
Documents
- OCP ESUN Workstream Process
- ESUN Overview
- OCP ESUN FAQ
- OCP ESUN Blog
- ESUN 1.0 Spec is published!! OCP ESUN – Network Operator Requirements Rev 1.0
Key Focus Areas
- – L2/L3 Framing
- – Efficient Headers
- – Link Resiliency (Error Recovery)
- – Lossless Network
Driving Principles
- Technical Collaboration: ESUN serves as an open forum where operators, equipment and component manufacturers can jointly advance Ethernet solutions optimized for scale-up networking.
- Interoperability: The initiative emphasizes development and interoperability of XPU network interfaces and Ethernet switch ASICs for scale-up.
- Technical Focus: Initial focus will be on L2/L3 Ethernet framing and switching, enabling robust, lossless, and error-resilient single-hop and multi-hop topologies.
- Standards Alignment: ESUN will actively engage with organizations such as UEC (Ultra-Ethernet Consortium) and IEEE 802.3 (Ethernet) to align with open standards, incorporate best practices, and accelerate innovation.
- Ecosystem Enablement: By leveraging Ethernet’s mature hardware and software ecosystem, ESUN will encourage diverse implementations and drive rapid adoption across the industry.
Recordings from Past Calls
2025
Regular Project Calls
This workstream meets biweekly on Thursdays at 9am PT via a conference call. This call is open to those that signed the feedback form (please check the call calendar). Join the mailiing list to be notified of changes/cancellations.
ESUN Group meets every other Thursday: 9-10am Pacific Time