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User-space protocols deliver high performance to applications on a low-cost Gb/s LAN

Authors:

Costas Calamvokis,

C. DaltonAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Volume 24, Issue 4

Pages 14 - 23

https://doi.org/10.1145/190809.190316

Published: 01 October 1994 Publication History

Abstract

Two important questions in high-speed networking are firstly, how to provide Gbit/s networking at low cost and secondly, how to provide a flexible low-level network interface so that applications can control their data from the instant it arrives.

We describe some work that addresses both of these questions. The Jetstream Gbit/s LAN is an experimental, low-cost network interface that provides the services required by delay-sensitive traffic as well as meeting the performance needs of current applications. Jetstream is a combination of traditional shared-medium LAN technology and more recent ATM cell- and switch-based technology.

Jetstream frames contain a channel identifier so that the network driver can immediately associate an incoming frame with its application. We have developed such a driver that enables applications to control how their data should be managed without the need to first move the data into the application's address space. Consequently, applications can elect to read just a part of a frame and then instruct the driver to move the remainder directly to its destination. Individual channels can elect to receive frames that have failed their CRC, while applications can specify frame-drop policies on a per-channel basis.

Measured results show that both kernel- and user-space protocols can achieve very good throughput: applications using both TCP and our own reliable byte-stream protocol have demonstrated throughputs in excess of 200 Mbit/s. The benefits of running protocols in user-space are well known- the drawback has often been a severe penalty in the performance achieved. In this paper we show that it is possible to have the best of both worlds.

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Zhan XBao YBienia CLi K(2017)PARSEC3.0ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/3053277.305327944:5(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2017
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Index Terms

User-space protocols deliver high performance to applications on a low-cost Gb/s LAN
1. Networks

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Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review Volume 24, Issue 4

Oct. 1994

318 pages

ISSN:0146-4833

DOI:10.1145/190809

Editor:
David Oran
Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton, MA

Issue’s Table of Contents

SIGCOMM '94: Proceedings of the conference on Communications architectures, protocols and applications
October 1994
328 pages
ISBN:0897916824
DOI:10.1145/190314
Chairman:
Jon Crowcroft
Univ. College London, UK

Copyright © 1994 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 October 1994

Published in SIGCOMM-CCR Volume 24, Issue 4

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Cited By

Zhan XBao YBienia CLi K(2017)PARSEC3.0ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News10.1145/3053277.305327944:5(1-16)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2017
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3053277.3053279
Pope SRiddoch D(2007)10Gb/s Ethernet performance and retrospectiveACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review10.1145/1232919.123293037:2(89-92)Online publication date: 20-Mar-2007
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1232919.1232930
Barzilai TKandlur DMehra ASaha D(2006)Design and implementation of an RSVP-based quality of service architecture for an integrated services InternetIEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications10.1109/49.66904716:3(397-413)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2006
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/49.669047
Bos Hde Bruijn WCristea MNguyen TPortokalidis G(2004)FFPFProceedings of the 6th conference on Symposium on Operating Systems Design & Implementation - Volume 610.5555/1251254.1251278(24-24)Online publication date: 6-Dec-2004
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/1251254.1251278
Black RBarham PDonnelly AStratford N(1997)Protocol implementation in a vertically structured operating systemProceedings of 22nd Annual Conference on Local Computer Networks10.1109/LCN.1997.630986(179-188)Online publication date: 1997
https://doi.org/10.1109/LCN.1997.630986
Mehra AIndiresan AShin K(1997)Structuring Communication Software for Quality-of-Service GuaranteesIEEE Transactions on Software Engineering10.1109/32.63714523:10(616-634)Online publication date: 1-Oct-1997
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/32.637145
Gomez JRego VSunderam V(1997)Efficient Multithreaded User-Space Transport for Network ComputingJournal of Parallel and Distributed Computing10.1006/jpdc.1996.126940:1(103-117)Online publication date: 10-Jan-1997
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1006/jpdc.1996.1269
Hahn KGiboney KWilson RStraznicky JWong ETan MKaneshiro RDolfi DMueller EPlotts AMurray DMarchegiano JBooth BSano BMadhaven BRaghavan BLevi A(1996)Gigabyte/s data communications with the POLO parallel optical link1996 Proceedings 46th Electronic Components and Technology Conference10.1109/ECTC.1996.517406(301-307)Online publication date: 1996
https://doi.org/10.1109/ECTC.1996.517406
Leslie IMcAuley DBlack RRoscoe TBarham PEvers DFairbairns RHyden E(1996)The design and implementation of an operating system to support distributed multimedia applicationsIEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications10.1109/49.53648014:7(1280-1297)Online publication date: 1-Sep-1996
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/49.536480
Miyake YKato TSuzuki K(1995)Implementation method of high speed protocol as transport libraryProceedings of International Conference on Network Protocols10.1109/ICNP.1995.524832(172-179)Online publication date: 1995
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICNP.1995.524832
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