CAREER: High-Performance Packet Processing with Programmable NIC Data-Planes

在当今的数据中心中，网络性能正在激增，超过了现代处理器的容量，并使其成为要求苛刻的数据中心应用程序的性能瓶颈。受此问题困扰的应用程序示例包括Facebook、Google、Amazon和其他流行网站的后端服务。这些服务将大部分时间用于进行网络输入/输出。随着处理器和网络性能之间的差距扩大，这些服务的效率越来越低。更高效的服务器软件可以改善这种情况，提高应用程序的性能，同时降低数据中心的巨大能源消耗。本项目研究了服务器硬件和软件网络堆栈的重新设计，旨在简化和提高网络I/O能源效率。为此，该项目利用了一种新的编程模型，用于网卡中的节能数据包处理，称为匹配和动作处理。这种方法允许应用程序和操作系统在网卡上安装数据包处理规则，指示网卡在向主机传输数据包和从主机传输数据包时对数据包执行简单的操作。该模型具有很高的能源效率，但允许保留网络协议实现的灵活性和与现有应用程序的兼容性。这项工作有可能显着改善应用程序和服务器的性能，以及数据中心的能源消耗。地球仪上的数十亿人每天都在使用网络密集型数据中心应用程序。通过减少网络开销，支持现有服务所需的硬件可以减少，从而使开发新服务的成本更低。为了评估设计方案的空间，该项目构建了一个工作原型和一个能够运行标准服务器应用程序的模拟器。所有源代码沿着配置文件和用于复制已发布的系统测量结果的说明都将公开，并可从UTAustin的项目网站（http：//www.cs.utexas.edu/flexsimon/flexnic）访问。该网站将在项目期间积极维护。

In today's data centers, network performance is surging, outstrippingthe capacity of modern processors, and turning them into a performancebottleneck for demanding data center applications. Examples ofapplications suffering from this problem include the back end servicesimplementing Facebook, Google, Amazon, and other popularwebsites. These services spend most of their time conducting networkinput/output. As the gap between processor and network performance widens,these services become less and less efficient. More efficient serversoftware can ameliorate the situation, increasing the performance ofapplications while also reducing a data center's prodigious energyconsumption.This project investigates a re-design of the server hardware andsoftware network stack, with the aim to streamline and improve networkI/O energy-efficiency. To do so, the project utilizes a newprogramming model for energy-efficient packet processing in networkcards, called match-and-action processing. The approach allowsapplications and operating systems to install packet processing rulesto the network card that instruct it to execute simple operations onpackets while transferring them to and from the host. This model ishighly energy efficient, yet allows to retain network protocolimplementation flexibility and compatibility with existingapplications.The work has the potential for dramatic improvements in applicationand server performance, as well as data center energyconsumption. Network intensive data center applications are used bybillions of people around the globe on a daily basis. By reducing theoverhead of networking, the hardware needed to support existingservices can be reduced, making it cheaper for new services to bedeveloped.To evaluate the space of design alternatives, the project builds aworking prototype and an emulator capable of running standard serverapplications. All source code, along with configuration files andinstructions for reproducing published measurements of the system,will be made public and accessible from the project website at UTAustin (http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~simon/flexnic). The website will beactively maintained for the duration of the project.