Abstract
The Network Processor market is one of the fastest growing segments of the microprocessor industry today. In spite of this increasing market importance, there does not exist a common framework to compare the performance of different Network Processor designs. Our primary goal in this study is to fill this gap by creating the NetBench benchmarking suite. NetBench is designed to represent Network Processor workloads. It contains 11 programs that form 18 different applications. The programs are selected from all levels of packet processing: Small, low-level code fragments as well as large application-level programs are included in the suite. These applications are representative of the Network Processor applications in the market. Using the SimpleScalar simulator to model an ARM processor, we study these programs in detail and compare key characteristics, such as instructions per cycle, instruction distribution, cache behavior, and branch prediction accuracy with the programs from MediaBench. Using statistical analysis, we show that the simulation results for the programs in NetBench have significantly different characteristics than programs in MediaBench. Finally, we present performance measurements from Intel IXP1200 Network Processor to show how NetBench can be utilized.
- Barrett, D. and Silverman, R. 2001. SSH: The Secure Shell, The Definitive Guide. O'Reilly Publishers, Sebastopol, CA.]] Google Scholar
- Burger, D. and Austin, T. 1997. The SimpleScalar Tool Set, Version 2.0. University of Wisconsin, Technical report.]]Google Scholar
- Cell-Relay. CRC-32 Calculation, Test Cases and HEC Tutorial. http://cell.onecall.net/cell-relay/publications/software/.]]Google Scholar
- C-Port Corp. C-5 Digital Communications Processor Product Brief. http://www.cportcorp.com/products/pdf/c5brief.pdf.]]Google Scholar
- Crowley, P., Fiuczynski, M. E., Baer, J. L., and Bershad, B. N. 2000. Characterizing Processor Architectures for Programmable Network Interfaces. In Proceedings of International Symposium on Supercomputing, Santa Fe, NM.]] Google Scholar
- EEMBC. An Industry Standard Benchmark. http://www.eembc.org/Benchmark/networking.asp]]Google Scholar
- Freebsd Project. FreeBSD Operating System. http://freebsd.org]]Google Scholar
- Halfhill, T. R. 1999. Intel Network Processor Targets Routers. Microprocessor Report 13--12, 1--26.]]Google Scholar
- Improv Inc. The Jazz PSA platform. http://www.improvsys.com/Products/Jazz.]]Google Scholar
- Intel Corp. 2000. Intel Pentium III Processor and Intel 815E Performance Brief.]]Google Scholar
- Intel Corp. SA-110 Microprocessor Technical Reference Manual. ftp://download.intel.com/design/strong/applnots/27819401.pdf.]]Google Scholar
- International Organization for Standardization. 1984. ISO Information Processing Systems---Data Communication High-Level Data Link Control Procedure---Frame Structure.]]Google Scholar
- Lee, C., Potkonjak, M., and Mangione-Smith, W. H. 1997a. MediaBench: A Tool for Evaluating and Synthesizing Multimedia and Communications Systems. In Proceedings of International Symposium on Microarchitecture, Research Triangle Park, NC, December. 330-- 335.]] Google Scholar
- Lee, C.-C., Chen, I.-C. K., and Mudge, T. N. 1997b. The bi-mode branch predictor. In Proceedings of International Symposium on Microarchitecture, Research Triangle Park, NC, December. 4--13.]] Google Scholar
- Memik, G. and Mangione-Smith, W. H. The NetBench Web Site, http://istanbul.icsl.ucla.edu/NetBench.]]Google Scholar
- MMC Networks. Leading the Network Processor Revolution, http://www.mmcnet.com/Solutions.]]Google Scholar
- Nemirovsky, A. 2000. Towards Characterizing Network Processors: Needs and Challenges, XStream Logic Inc.]]Google Scholar
- Network Processor Forum. Network Processor Forum, http://www.npforum.org.]]Google Scholar
- PMC-Sierra Inc. URL-based Switching, PMC-2002232, http://www.pmcsierra.com.]]Google Scholar
- Rivest, R. 1992. The MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm.]] Google Scholar
- Roesch, M. The Open Source Network Intrusion Detection System Web Site, http://www.snort.org.]]Google Scholar
- RSA Data Security. RSA Security Downloads, http://www.rsasecurity.com/download.]]Google Scholar
- Russell, P. IPCHAINS version 1.3.10, http://netfilter.filewatcher.org/ipchains.]]Google Scholar
- Senie, D. Changing the Default for Directed Broadcasts in Routers. Request for Comment (RFC) 2644.]] Google Scholar
- Shreedhar, M. and Varghese, G. 1995. Efficient Fair Queuing using Deficit Round Robin. In Proceedings of SIGCOMM'95, Cambridge, MA, Aug/Sep.]] Google Scholar
- Standard Performance Evaluation Council. Spec CPU2000: Performance Evaluation in the New Millennium, Version 1.1.]]Google Scholar
- The Nlanr Project. NLANR Network Traffic Packet Header Traces, http://moat.nlanr.net/Traces.]]Google Scholar
- The OpenBSD Project. Manual pages: sftp(1), http://www.openbsd.org.]]Google Scholar
- The OpenSSL Project. The Open Source Toolkit for SSL/TSL, http://www.openssl.org.]]Google Scholar
- Transaction Processing Council. TPC Benchmarks, http://www.tpc.org.]]Google Scholar
- Wolf, T. and Franklin, M. 2000. CommBench---A Telecommunication Benchmark for Network Processors. In Proceedings of IEEE International Symposium on Performance Analysis of Systems and Software, Austin/TX, (April).]] Google Scholar
- Woo, S. E. A. 1995. The SPLASH-2 Programs: Characterization and Methodological Considerations. In Proceedings of International Symposium on Computer Architecture, Santa Margherita Ligure, Italy, June. 24--36.]] Google Scholar
- XStream Corp. XStream Logic Packet Processing Core, http://www.xstreamlogic.com/architectural_files.]]Google Scholar
- Yeh, T. H. and Patt, Y. 1992. Alternative implementations of two-level adaptive branch prediction. In Proceedings of International Symposium on Computer Architecture, Queensland, Australia, May. 124--134.]] Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Evaluating Network Processors using NetBench
Recommendations
NetBench: a benchmarking suite for network processors
ICCAD '01: Proceedings of the 2001 IEEE/ACM international conference on Computer-aided designIn this study we introduce NetBench, a benchmarking suite for network processors. NetBench contains a total of 9 applications that are representative of commercial applications for network processors. These applications are from all levels of packet ...
C Compiler Design for an Industrial Network Processor
OM '01: Proceedings of the 2001 ACM SIGPLAN workshop on Optimization of middleware and distributed systemsOne important problem in code generation for embedded processors is the design of efficient compilers for ASIPs with application specific architectures. This paper outlines the design of a C compiler for an industrial ASIP for telecom applications. The ...
A MATLAB Vectorizing Compiler Targeting Application-Specific Instruction Set Processors
Special Section of IDEA: Integrating Dataflow, Embedded Computing, and ArchitectureThis article discusses a MATLAB-to-C vectorizing compiler that exploits custom instructions, for example, for Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) processing and instructions for complex arithmetic present in Application-Specific Instruction Set ...
Comments