PhD VIVA Kevin lee 28 th July 2006 “OpenNP: A Generic Programming Model for Network Processors” Brief Introduction

1. History How did the project come about: MSc project: “OpenRouter: A Component Framework for Structuring Software Routers” MSc project: Building Simple PC-based Routers from components An interest in higher speed and more restrictive routing platforms Coincidental donation of cutting edge NPs from Intel as I started my PhD

2.The Field: Network Processors  Designed to fill a gap in network technology between ASIC-based routers and PC-based routers  Characteristics Highly Programmable Multi Gigabit Speeds Specialised Packet Processors Variety of Hardware Assists

2. Example: The Intel IXP2400  the thesis implementation example Main points: Microengines General Purpose CPU Multiple memory types Internal gigabit bus Programmable Hardware components Gigabit Ethernet ports

3. Motivation: Current NP software Toolkits for NPs consist of:  Assembler/ C if lucky  Good simulation/monitoring  Deployment – by hand  Code managing/replacement – by hand  No design portability whatsoever  No support for runtime reconfiguration

3.Motivation: What would be Ideal?  Need for generic models and frameworks for Network Processors Transferable skills Better Application design Design Portability  Runtime reconfiguration support in Network Processor software Software Updates Supporting Unforeseen Events Load-balancing Support Active Networks

3. The Approach: Component Model Using a lightweight Component Model as the basis:  fine-grained and language-independent  small run-time (~27K); simple and efficient  components are primitive units of encapsulation and deployment deployed into capsules (for “capsule”, think container rather than active packet!)  Support or Component Frameworks for higher level features  Support for Reflection using meta interfaces Architecture, Interception, Resources

3. The Approach: Extensions for NPs  OpenCOM gives us a lightweight base to build upon  Enhancements for NPs Pluggable loaders  To allow code to be loaded on third party processors Pluggable binders  To allow code to be bound within and between different processors Support for communication channels  To allow proxy loading and binding Deployment Roles  Structure the development process

4. The Approach: Supporting NP features Demonstrate support of features in different example NPs:  Packet Processors  Hardware Assists  Interconnects and Buses  Ports  Parallelism  Runtime Reconfiguration

5. Publications  K. Lee, G. Coulson, “Towards a Generic Programming Model for Network Processors”, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Networks (ICON'04), Singapore, November  K. Lee, G. Coulson, “Supporting Runtime Reconfiguration on Network Processors”, 20th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA'06), Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria, April 2006.

Open for Discussion