A resource efficient content inspection system for next generation Smart NICs

— The aggregate power consumption of the Internet is increasing at an alarming rate, due in part to the rapid increase in the number of connected edge devices such as desktop PCs. Despite being left idle 75% of the time, 90% of PCs have their power management features disabled. Consequently, much recent research has focused on reducing power consumption of Internet edge devices. One such method for reducing PC power consumption is by augmenting the Network Interface Card (NIC) with enhanced processing capabilities. These capabilities pave the way for green computing by allowing the PC to transition to a low-power sleep state while the NIC responds to network traffic on behalf of the PC – a technique known as power proxying. However, such a Smart-NIC (SNIC) requires specialized low-power, resource-constrained processing, and architectural features in order to realize such capabilities. In this paper, we present a NIC-based packet content inspection system for power proxying and netw...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ICCD
• Authors: Karthik Sabhanatarajan, Ann Gordon-Ross
• Keywords: Aggregate Power Consumption, Hardware, ICCD 2008, PC Power Consumption, Power Management Features