Data Path Processing in Fast Programmable Routers

Abstract

Internet is growing at a fast pace. The link speeds are surging toward 40 Gbps with the emergence of faster link technologies. New applications are coming up which require intelligent processing at the intermediate routers. Switches and routers are becoming the bottlenecks in fast communication. On one hand faster links deliver more packets every second and on the other hand intelligent processing consumes more CPU cycles at the router. The conflicting goals of providing faster but computationally expensive processing call for new approaches in designing routers. This survey takes a look at the core functionalities, like packet classification, buffer memory management, switch scheduling and output link scheduling performed by a router in its data path processing and discusses the algorithms that aim to reduce the performance bound for these operations. An important requirement for the routers is to provide Quality of Service guarantees. We propose an algorithm to guarantee QoS in Input Queued Routers. The hardware solution to speed up router operation was Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs). But the inherent inflexibility of the method is a demerit as network standards and application requirements are constantly evolving, which seek a faster turnaround time to keep up with the changes. The promise of Network Processors (NP) is the flexibility of general-purpose processors together with the speed of ASICs. We will study the architectural choices for the design of Network Processors and focus on some of the commercially available NPs. There is a plethora of NP vendors in the market. The discussion on the NP benchmarks sets the normalizing platform to evaluate these NPs.