Introduction

Introduction#

The Intel® Data Mover Library (Intel® DML) is used to improve performance of database, enterprise data, communications, and scientific/technical applications. Intel DML is a common interface for a number of commonly used algorithms. Using this library enables you to automatically tune your application to many generations of processors without changes in your application. The Intel DML provides high performance implementations of data processing functions for existing hardware accelerator, and/or software path in case if hardware accelerator is not available. Code written with the library automatically takes advantage of available modern CPU capabilities. This can provide tremendous development and maintenance savings. The goal of the Intel DML is to provide application programming interface (API) with:

  • a simple C/C++ interface and data structures to enhance usability and portability

  • faster time-to-market

  • scalability with Intel® Data Streaming Accelerator (Intel® DSA) hardware

Note

Intel® DML doesn’t support all hardware possibilities. Library limitations are described in the Library Limitations section.

Library Possibilities#

Execution paths:

The library supports several implementation/execution paths that help to achieve the optimal system resources utilization:

  • Hardware Path - all hardware-supported functions are executed by the Intel® DSA.

  • Software Path - all supported functionality is executed by the software library.

  • Auto Path - the library automatically dispatches execution of the requested jobs either to Intel® Data Streaming Accelerator or to the software path of the library depending on internal heuristics.

Operations:

The library supports several groups of operations:

  • Flow Control

  • Memory Transferring and Filling

  • Memory Compare and Restore

  • Memory Hash

  • Utility

Work Queue Support#

Intel® Data Streaming Accelerator (Intel® DSA) 2.0 supports the ability to configure which operations are supported using the OPCFG register.

As of Intel DML 1.2.0 or higher with libaccel-config library version 4.0 or higher, the device dispatcher respects each work queue’s OPCFG register. The operation isn’t submitted to work queues that do not support it and returns a DML_STATUS_NOT_SUPPORTED_BY_WQ status on the Low-Level API and not_supported_by_wqs status on the High-Level API if no available work queue supports the operation.

In the case of older Intel DML version, operations are submitted to any available work queue. This could cause a status code to be returned when any work queue does not support an operation.

In the case of an older Intel DSA or libaccel-config version without OPCFG support, no issues would arise as work queues would allow all available operations.

Library Limitations#

  • Library does not work with Dedicated WQs for the accelerator, but uses shared ones only.

  • Library does not have API for the hardware path configuration.

  • Library does not support Hardware execution path on Windows OS.

  • Library is not developed for kernel mode usage. It is user level driver library.

Library APIs#

Library has several interfaces that provide access to Intel DML possibilities through different languages and paradigms: - Public C API - Public C++ API

C API (Job API):

Represents a state based interface. The base idea is to allocate a single state and configure one with different ways to perform necessary operation. Such API does not allocate memory internally.

More details: C API Manual

C++ API (High Level API):

Represents high level operations API written with C++. API provides compile time optimizations and less operation preparation latency.

More details: C++ API Manual

Contents