Network processor

[Pramod John]

Wajdi,
    Network Processors today typical refer to multi-processor RISC cores
with hardware for additional functions such as crypto engines,
tcp-termination, streaming interfaces etc connected via fast interconnects
and memory interfaces.  The current crop of processors abstract most of the
multiple processor aspects and present themselves via a multi-threaded cpu
abstraction.  As a point of comparison an Intel 2850 can process about 22
GIPS as compared to a 3.5Ghz P4 Xeon that may do 3.5-4 GIPS+. The price
points of the processors are very comparable at about $695 for a 2850 NPU or
P4 3.2G/800.  The 2850 comes with 2 Crypto engines but has a VERY reduced
instruction set. The P4 comes with a much larger instruction set and a full
floating point unit.  Which is a better fit really depends on the
application. For most general routing types of applications where most of
the processing occurs at the header, the 2850's are ideal.  As you get into
more sophisticated content based processing you may not be able to achieve
the same level of performance.  NPU's like the 2850 were designed to provide
10G ethernet processing.  Today on even the fastest general purpose
multi-CPU P4 systems, providing 10G forwarding would be a very daunting task
primarily because of the I/O interface.  Click is a modular architecture for
packet processing.  As such conceivably it could run on NPU platform too if
someone were to port it.  But if you want to model your application on Click
and your target is an NPU for which there is no Click support, I don't how
much that will help you as the typical software models for most NPU's are
quite different.  So comparing Click to an NPU is somewhat of an apples to
oranges comparison.

thanks,

Pramod

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "louati" <wajdi.louati at int-evry.fr>
To: <click at amsterdam.lcs.mit.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 2:50 AM
Subject: Network processor


> Hi
> Thank you for your answer
> I have just one question about the Click Modular Router compared to a
> Network Processor:
> Q:  A Network processor combines flexibility and performance to process
> packet data. However, SMP Click is a software router that provides both
> flexibility and high performance on stock multiprocessor PC hardware. So,
> can we consider the SMP Click softwre as a modeling system for a network
> processor?
>
> Thank very much for your kind attention
> Wajdi
>