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Study of OSI protocol processing engines

University of British Columbia

The increases in communication bandwidth provided by fiber optics and high-speed switching technologies have shifted the limiting factor in data throughput from the communication link to the communication processing. The communication processing for open systems interconnection (OSI) in particular is quite heavy due to the inclusion of data transfer syntax conversion in order to assure interoperability between different machine types. In this thesis report, two multiprocessing architectures are considered as protocol processing engines for OSI communications. The conventional approach is to have the host computer perform the protocol processing especially for the higher layers. However, the protocol processing burden at communication rates of hundreds or even thousands of million bits per second places such a heavy processing burden on the host that this becomes undesirable. The protocol processing engines act as front-end systems performing most of the OSI protocol processing, including the transfer syntax conversion, on behalf of the host. A multiprocessor approach was selected because the required amount of processing power can be supplied using lower processor technology than for an uniprocessor approach. The protocol engines were designed based on a processing model in which different packets are processed at the same time in different processors. The protocol engines are designed to perform the protocol processing for OSI layers 2 through 6. Results obtained from simulating the designs indicate that a processing throughput of a hundred megabit per second is achievable only for packets which contain very simple data structures.

Text

2010-11-23

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/30104

Electrical and Computer Engineering

University of British Columbia

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