FPGA Based Packet Classification Using Multi-Pipeline Architecture

Abstract

This paper proposes a decision-tree-based linear multi-pipeline architecture on FPGA's for packet sorting. We reflect on the next-generation packet classification problems where more than 5-tuple packet header fields has been classified. From traditional fixed 5-tuple matching, Multi-field packet classification has been evolved for flexible matching with arbitrary combination of numerous packet header fields. The recently proposed Open Flow switching requires classifying each packet using up to 12-tuple packet header fields. It become a great task to develop scalable solutions for next-generation packet classification that support larger rule sets, additional packet header fields and higher throughput. This paper proposes a 2-D multi-pipeline decision-tree-based architecture for next-generation packet classification which exploits the abundant parallelism and other desirable features such as current field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),. We propose several optimization techniques for the state-of-the-art decision-tree-based algorithm by examine the various traditional 5-tuple packet classification methods. By using set of 12-tuple rules, the framework has been developed to partition the rule set into multiple subsets each of which is built into an optimized decision tree. To maximize the memory utilization. a tree-to-pipeline mapping scheme is carefully designed while underneath high throughput. Our proposed architecture can store up to 1K synthetic 12-tuple rules or 10K real-life 5-tuple rules in on-chip memory of a single up to date FPGA, and maintain 80 or 40 Gbps throughput for least packets of size (40 bytes) respectively. To utilize the memory properly and to sustaining high throughput, a mapping scheme based on tree-to-pipeline is designed carefully. This paper deal with the profuse parallelism and other preferred features provided by present field-programmable gate arrays and propose a 2-D multi-pipeline decision tree based architecture for next-generation packet sorting. The Verilog Hardware description languages (VHDL) are used to design the proposed architecture and synthesized using Xilinx Software.