Design of a network service processing platform for data path customization

Custom packet processing functionality in routers is one of the key characteristics of next-generation Internet architectures. Network services have been proposed as an abstraction to describe, compose, and deploy end-to-end connections with custom communication features. We present a novel hardware architecture for high-performance processing of such network services in the data path. The design provides simple processing units to implement services and a custom hardware infrastructure to manage packets and processing context. The design allows for simple software development, flexible network service allocation, and high scalability to handle traffic at Gigabit line rates. Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.6 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Internet

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2009
• Where: SIGCOMM
• Authors: Qiang Wu, Tilman Wolf
• Keywords: Communications, Custom Packet Processing, Network Service, SIGCOMM 2009, Simple Processing Units