A framework on gigabit rate packet header collection for low-cost Internet monitoring system

As a result of the spread of Gigabit Ethernet technologies, we need to realize Internet monitoring systems with gigabit-rate capability using commodity hardware. However, it is quite difficult for existing systems just to collect all the packet headers at a gigabit rate even if high-end hardware components are used. In order to support gigabit rate traffic, we propose a novel framework on packet header collection which can be applied to most network interface cards. Our evaluation results show that our first implementation can collect 100% of header information, even in the case that a Gigabit Ethernet link is fully utilized by 384-byte packets, while existing software-based systems can collect less than 50% in spite of using more than twice the CPU resources.