Research And Implement On Software Framework For Multicore Network Processors

Multicore network processor is a kind of integrated circuit(IC)which has two or more executing cores in one package.Each executing core is an independent processor which has its own set of executing units and architecture resources. Multicore network processor can achieve high processing performance and be programmed flexibly.These features make multicore network processor very suitable for the needs of high speed network and its service.Multicore network processor can offer the abilities of high-speed control plane and data plane processing,application-aware processing,DPI,pattern match and encryption accelerating.It is targeted for using in a wide variety of networking and storage equipments,including routers,content-aware switches,triple-play gateways, 3G/4G access and aggregation devices,etc.In these application environments, networks are evolving to deliver a flexible mix of data,voice and video content.Data rates are increasing application delivery mandates the need to process intelligent layer 2 to layer 7 data and content at line rate.A high-performance and universal software framework has become a key issue in this field.The software development of multicore network processors is a very tough task due to the parallel architectural complexity and the cross plane particularity of network processing system.Currently,the deficiencies of software support lie in three aspects:high level programming model,network processing algorithm library and OS support suitable to multi-planes systems.In recent years,scholars have researched a lot of problems wheras there exist still many unresoluted problems.And the research of high-layer application and high performance software framework is still at the initial stage.The dissertation has made innovative progress in the following respects.1)An extensible multi-planes framework has been proposed and implemented, which can support the integration of data plane,control plane and management plane. The data plane and control plane can implement complex network application processing,the management plane has proposed an unify management system to manage mult-service.2)An interaction interfaces framework has been researched and implemented, which can support the communication and coordination between data plane and control plane.In the newest Linux kernel,there isn't division clearly between fast path and slow path.The dissertation has defined the division and optimized two paths for the first time.A series of interface design is imported to realize the performance balance and improvement between multicore processor and OS kernel.3)An algorithms components library has been imported and implemented based on multicore network processors.A packet scheduler based on the concept of even service sequence is implemented at fast path,which shows that performance of the scheduler is not proportional with the number of flow and thus is quite scalable.A genetic algorithm is constructed for pipelined programming mode,which assigns tasks to processing engines automatieally and accelerate multicore software development process.4)A virtual network block(VNB)framework has been designed and implemented at OS kernel network sub-system,which implements the "low-layer processing" strategy and imports OO(object-oriented)into the kernel level.The VNB framework shields and processes most of illegal packet and release memory,all of key data processing are worked on kernel level.The VNB integrated with multi-planes software framework can improve performance and functions dynamic extension.At the same time,OO is imported in the design of management plane, event mechanism provide the unify configuration and management interface to some high level application.This dissertation implemented and optimized some key IP security applications. To snort,we redesigned it by parallel and multi-thread.To NAT/PT,we optimized it by fast path.To netflow,we redesigned it by dual plane.To IPSec,we import the newest hardware encryption standard at data plane to adapt the special hardware specification and implement all the performance-associated processing at fast path to dig the performance data of multicore processor.At the same time,all of the IP security application's testing result datas have verified the success of software framework based on multicore network processors. This dissertation is sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 90304018,60672137,the Doctoral Program Foundationo of Ministry of Edueation of China under Grant 20060497015,and and the Key Technology R & D Program of Hubei Province in China under Grant No.2007AA101c63...