Application-Layer Packet Processing through Ethereal Memory

This work deals with an architectural framework to enable application-layer packet processing for lowered processing latency and enhanced throughput. Creating an "Ethereal memory" shared by application programs and network interface drivers, the proposed framework realizes application-layer packet processing through Ethereal memory (APPEAL). Unlike earlier solutions based on network processors or field programmable gate arrays, APPEAL supports packet processing software execution in regular OS environments (like Linux) on general-purpose multi-core processors (like Intelreg Core 2 Extreme and Broadcom BCM1480 SoC products). It facilitates fast packet processing code development and lets applications have direct accesses to data contained in Ethereal memory, totally eliminating the need of packet copies between user space and kernel space and of system calls. Without kernel overhead during application layer packet processing, APPEAL is shown by our empirical results obtained from a hardware platform comprising three BCM 1480 SoC\´s, to enjoy far smaller latency (dropped by as much as 58%) and to more than double throughput, when carrying out network address and port translation.