Protocol implementation on the Nectar Communication Processor

Cooper, Eric C.; Steenkiste, Peter; Sansom, Robert D.; Zill, Brian

doi:10.1145/99508.99545

Cited by 51 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The programmability can be used by applications to customize protocol processing. Cooper, et al [8], report that TCP/IP and a number of Nectar-specific protocols have been implemented on the CAB.…”

Section: Example Host Interface Architecturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Giving applications access to Gb/s networking

Smith

Traw

1993

IEEE Network

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Network fabrics with Gigabit per second (Gbps) bandwidths are available today, but these bandwidths are not yet available to applications. The difficulties lie in the hardware and software architecture through which application data travels between the network and host memory. The hardware portion of the architecture is often called a host interface and the remainder of the protocol stack is implemented in host software.In this paper, we outline a variety of approaches to the architecture of such systems, examine several design points, and study one example in detail. The detailed example, an ATM Host Interface and Operating System support built at the University of Pennsylvania, illustrates design tradeoffs for hardware and software, and some of the implications of these tradeoffs on applications performance.

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Section: Example Host Interface Architecturesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Giving applications access to Gb/s networking

Smith

Traw

1993

IEEE Network

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“…Although this work is redundant with respect to the host's network stack, it allows self-securing NIs to be deployed with no client software modification. For NIs that offload higher-level protocols (e.g., IP security or TCP) from the host [Cooper90,Dalton93], redundant work becomes unnecessary because the only instance of the work is already within the NI. Self-securing NIs enforce policies set by the network administrator, just as a centralized firewall would.…”

Section: Self-securing Network Interfacesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling Dynamic Security Management of Networked Systems via Device-Embedded Security (Self-Securing Devices)

Ganger¹

2007

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“…Implementations include the XTP Protocol Engine [8], the Nectar communications processor [14], and the VMP adaptor [23]. Follow on work [22,33] based on the Protocol Engine architecture implemented TCP/IP on the host interface for a 622Mb/s ATM network.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

10Gb/s Ethernet performance and retrospective

Pope¹,

Riddoch²

2007

SIGCOMM Comput. Commun. Rev.

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This paper presents both a retrospective of the development of network interface architecture, and performance and conformance data from a range of contemporary devices sporting various performance enhancing technologies. The data shows that 10Gb/s networking is now possible without statefull offload and while consuming less than one CPU core on a contemporary commodity server. INTRODUCTIONFrom ARPANET [6] and Ethernet [30] [33,21]. These developments to the mid90s have come to represent the roots of today's main-stream LAN interface designs. However, while is the case that offloads are now regarded as commodity items, the desirability and utility of even the most simple offload should remain under debate. For example Stone and Partridge [35] describe a study of the root cause of network errors which escape the Ethernet FCS check and find many systematic errors in hardware and software.One architecture which received attention from the late80s was that of executing the transport protocol on the host network interface. Implementations include the XTP Protocol Engine [8], the Nectar communications processor [14], and the VMP adaptor [23]. Follow on work [22,33] based on the Protocol Engine architecture implemented TCP/IP on the host interface for a 622Mb/s ATM network. This TCP/IP offload architecture was rejected [10,24] and has not subsequently been taken up to any significant degree by the academic community except recently as a means to an end for the support of Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA)protocols [31].Another architectural choice which is periodically revisited is whether to perform protocol processing in user or kernel space. Druschel and Davie implemented [13] an interface which allowed user-space programs direct access to an ATM adaptor and Thekkath describes [37] an implementation of a user level TCP/IP stack over Mach. As well as performance, this work was concerned with the issues of multi-protocol co-existence and efficient operation in a micro-kernel environment. By contrast, the Jetstream/Afterburner adaptor [15] was used to implement TCP/IP in user space [15] over a monolithic kernel, as did Pratt using a firmware modified Gigabit Ethernet NIC [32]. These were essentially ports of their respective kernel protocol stacks to user level over a protected hardware interface. Hybrid models have also been proposed, see [28] for a survey and perspective. However achieving good all-round performance has proven to be elusive without a protocol stack implementation which has been expressly designed for user level operation.Over the same late-80s to mid-90s period, there was considerable parallel activity with multicomputer network interface architecture. The ATOMIC project[11] utilised components from the Mosaic multicomputer to construct a Gb/s LAN (later commercialised [3]). The multicomputer environment was somewhat less constrained than that of the ATM or distributed systems environments, application behaviour suited low-overhead user-level abstractions of communication, and these abstra...

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Protocol implementation on the Nectar Communication Processor

Cited by 51 publications

References 11 publications

Giving applications access to Gb/s networking

Giving applications access to Gb/s networking

Enabling Dynamic Security Management of Networked Systems via Device-Embedded Security (Self-Securing Devices)

10Gb/s Ethernet performance and retrospective

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