Network stack specialization for performance
Abstract
Contemporary network stacks are masterpieces of generality, supporting many edge-node and middle-node functions. Generality comes at a high performance cost: current APIs, memory models, and implementations drastically limit the effectiveness of increasingly powerful hardware. Generality has historically been required so that individual systems could perform many functions. However, as providers have scaled services to support millions of users, they have transitioned toward thousands (or millions) of dedicated servers, each performing a few functions. We argue that the overhead of generality is now a key obstacle to effective scaling, making specialization not only viable, but necessary.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Aug 17, 2014
- Source ID
- 10.1145/2740070.2626311
Entities
People
- Ilias Marinos
- Mark Handley
- Robert N.m. Watson
Organizations
- Air Force Research Laboratory
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Seventh Framework Programme
- University College London
- University of Cambridge