Design and Evaluation of Bulk Data Transfer Extensions for the NFComms Framework

Abstract

We present the design and implementation of an indirect messaging extension for the existing NFComms framework that provides communication between a network flow processor and host CPU. This extension addresses the bulk throughput limitations of the framework and is intended to work in conjunction with existing communication mediums. Testing of the framework extensions shows an increase in throughput performance of up to 268x that of the current direct message passing framework at the cost of increased single message latency of up to 2x. This trade-off is considered acceptable as the proposed extensions are intended for bulk data transfer only while the existing message passing functionality of the framework is preserved and can be used in situations where low latency is required for small messages.

Keywords

• heterogeneous computing
• network processors
• message passing