A network processor based network protocol offload engine

Abstract

For high performance computer systems to keep up with rapidly growing network speed, we propose an Intel IXP1200 network processor based network protocol offload engine. The critical paths of network protocols, which have been implemented in software so far, are remodeled and re-implemented in dedicated packet processing engines of the network processor. These critical paths such as packet copying, checksum calculation and verification have been performance bottlenecks of computer systems. As well as the performance enhancement, the proposed approach is also flexible in the sense that the offload engine codes are reusable and easily modifiable. We evaluate the performance of the offload engine by implementing it on a Linux machine equipped with Intel IXP1200 PCI gigabit network interface card.