Making Network Interfaces Less Peripheral

Much of a computer’s value depends on how well it interacts with networks. To enhance this value, designers must improve the performance of networks delivered to users. Fortunately, the performance of networks is improving rapidly. Unfortunately, this dramatic improvement in network performance is seldom delivered to users. A key bottleneck is the host network interface (NI), which connects a network to a host computer. This bottleneck gets more severe as network and host performance continue to improve. The problem with current NIs is that they were designed with an interface similar to that of a disk interface. Most current NIs require applications to use an operating system call, are placed on the I/O bus, do not allow processors to cache their registers, and force processors to interact with them with in-order and non-speculative accesses. The last two problems are partially due to the presence of “side-effects” in current NI designs. While this kind of an interface may have...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 1998
• Where: COMPUTER
• Authors: Shubhendu S. Mukherjee, Mark D. Hill
• Keywords: COMPUTER 1998, Current Ni, Dramatic Improvements, Performance