Network Packet Processing with P4 (Programming Protocol-Independent Packet Processors) in CPU, GPU and FPGAs using OpenCL

网络功能虚拟化(NFV)的目的是对现有网络服务进行虚拟化 由专用硬件提供。NFV将减少启动所需的专用硬件数量 并运营网络服务。换句话说，NFV的提出是为了将网络功能与专用网络功能分离 硬件设备并允许现在由路由器、防火墙、负载执行的网络服务 平衡器和其他专用硬件设备将托管在虚拟机(VM)上。 因此，网络管理员将不再需要购买专用硬件设备 打造服务链条。因此，服务器功能和容量由可用的通用 授予NFV的硬件和该硬件的软件强制配额；将不需要 网络管理员为其数据中心过度配置专门的一次性硬件，这将 同时降低资本支出和运营费用。 英特尔CPU是目前可用于NFV应用程序的“通用硬件”；英特尔CPU不是 专为数据包处理等高度并行的任务而设计。英特尔对尖端技术的投资 建议未来NFV的“通用硬件”将配备现场可编程门阵列(现场可编程门阵列)或GPU (图形处理单元)基于协处理器，用于卸载高度并行的任务。一个重要的 这类硬件的可用性的结果是，设计人员可以在 制造，甚至在部署之后，如果客户希望这样做。新兴技术用于 将研究异构型计算(OpenCL)作为潜在的技术投资，以瞄准当前 具有相同代码库的新一代硬件和下一代硬件。

The purpose of Network functions virtualization (NFV) is to virtualize the network services that are now being offered by dedicated hardware. NFV will decrease the amount of dedicated hardware that's needed to launch and operate network services. In other words, NFV is proposed to decouple network functions from dedicated hardware devices and allow network services that are now being carried out by routers, firewalls, load balancers and other dedicated hardware devices to be hosted on virtual machines (VMs). Consequently, the network administrators will no longer need to purchase dedicated hardware devices in order to build a service chain. As a result, server-functionality and capacity is thus dictated by the available generic hardware and the software-enforced quota of that hardware granted to an NFV; there will be no need for network administrators to over-provision their data centres with specialized single-use hardware, which will reduce both capital expenses and operating expenses. Intel CPUs are the currently available "generic hardware" being used for NFV applications; Intel CPUs are not designed for highly parallel tasks like packet processing. Bleeding edge technology investments by Intel suggest that future "generic hardware" for NFVs will have FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) or GPU (Graphics Processing Units) based co-processors for offloading highly parallel tasks. An important consequence of the availability of this class of hardware is that designers could configure functionality after manufacture and even after deployment should this be desired by the customer. Emerging technologies for heterogeneous computing (OpenCL) will be investigated as potential technology investments to target current generation hardware and next generation hardware with the same code-base.