Key result
CXL-based PCIe device pooling offers flexible switch-free pooling with negligible impact on network performance.
Why the study?
High cost and limited flexibility of PCIe switches hinder widespread adoption of pooling PCIe devices across multiple hosts beyond specialized datacenters.
PCIe device pooling can be effectively implemented in software using CXL memory pools, offering a more flexible and cost-effective alternative to hardware PCIe switches in datacenters.
May enable flexible, low-cost I/O pooling in CXL datacenters; leaves open production-scale validation under sustained loads.
Pooling PCIe devices across multiple hosts offers a promising solution to mitigate stranded I/O resources, enhance device utilization, address device failures, and reduce total cost of ownership. The only viable option today are PCIe switches, which decouple PCIe devices from hosts by connecting them through a hardware switch. However, the high cost and limited flexibility of PCIe switches hinder their widespread adoption beyond specialized datacenter use cases.
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Zhong et al. (2025) studied this question. Software-based PCIe pooling via CXL memory pools vs. Hardware PCIe switches / Local DDR5 memory was evaluated. Software-based PCIe device pooling using CXL memory pools provides a flexible, cost-effective alternative to hardware PCIe switches with negligible impact on network latency and throughput.
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