A Security Showdown for Sovereign AI
Control is centralized in a single subnet manager, creating a single point of administration and potential failure.
Security is managed across multiple layers (ACLs, firewalls, etc.), offering defense-in-depth but increasing complexity.
Dominated by a single vendor, leading to tight integration but potential for vendor lock-in and limited choice.
A wide range of vendors promotes competition, innovation, and interoperability through open standards.
Uses Partition Keys for isolation, but management traffic (metadata) can sometimes cross tenant boundaries.
Encapsulates traffic in VXLAN tunnels, providing strong, cryptographically verifiable isolation between tenants.
Lacks a native, standardized link-layer encryption protocol, requiring higher-layer solutions.
Includes MACsec as a standard for hop-by-hop encryption, securing data in transit at Layer 2.
The centralized Subnet Manager can become a critical failure point; if it's compromised, the entire fabric is at risk.
Complex configurations can lead to vulnerabilities. Credit-based flow control can sometimes result in network deadlocks.
Key Takeaway
The choice between InfiniBand and Ethernet for sovereign AI infrastructure depends on your specific security requirements. InfiniBand offers superior performance with centralized control, while Ethernet provides mature security tooling with distributed management. Consider your threat model, compliance requirements, and operational expertise when making this critical infrastructure decision.
#!/bin/bash # Example: Security audit script echo "Starting AI system security audit..." # Check for exposed credentials echo "Checking for exposed credentials..." grep -r "api_key\|password\|secret" . --exclude-dir=.git 2>/dev/null | head -5 # Verify permissions echo "Checking file permissions..." find . -type f -perm 0777 2>/dev/null | head -5 # Check container security if command -v docker &> /dev/null; then echo "Scanning container images..." docker images --format "table {{.Repository}}:{{.Tag}}\t{{.Size}}" | head -5 fi # Network analysis echo "Checking open ports..." netstat -tuln 2>/dev/null | grep LISTEN | head -5 echo "Audit complete. Review findings above."