eBPF, or Extended Berkeley Packet Filter, is software embedded in the Linux kernel to capture various values for external observability. It is widely used in monitoring software, including traffic monitoring, load balancing, security, and more. The advantage of eBPF is that it does not require any changes to the kernel itself, and the code runs in a secure sandbox environment.
Developed in 2014, eBPF has evolved over the years from its predecessor, the Berkeley Packet Filter (BPF). One popular software that builds upon eBPF is Cilium, developed by Isovalent and recently acquired by Cisco in 2023. The development process of eBPF is overseen by the eBPF Foundation, established in 2021.
At the eBPF Summit 2024, the eBPF development team announced a key direction to make eBPF compatible with Windows, aiming to establish eBPF as a standard for such tasks on both platforms. While this may not be entirely new, as Microsoft previously announced support for eBPF for Windows in 2021 (code available on GitHub), the eBPF project will continue to extend this code and gradually port various eBPF tools to Windows.
In addition to Windows support, the eBPF project also unveiled plans to support running eBPF on GPUs and DPUs, which are emerging processing units in the computing landscape. This will be achieved using similar methodologies as the current CPU-based eBPF execution.
TLDR: eBPF, a cutting-edge software embedded in the Linux kernel, is making strides towards Windows compatibility and expanding support for GPUs and DPUs, signifying its growing versatility and relevance in the evolving tech landscape.
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