A Network Processor-Based, Content-Aware Switch

Author

Li Zhao ; Luo, Yan ; Bhuyan, Laxmi N. ; Iyer, Ravi

Author_Institution

California Univ., Riverside, CA

Volume

26

Issue

3

fYear

2006

Firstpage

72

Lastpage

84

Abstract

With the explosive growth in Internet traffic, requests have been overloading Web servers. Many ISPs and search engines employ a server cluster to build a cost-effective, scalable, and reliable server system. To make such a distributed-server system transparent to clients, architects usually place a switching device with one virtual Internet protocol (VIP) address in front of the server cluster as a common interface. We designed and implemented a content-aware switch based on an ENP2611 board that contains an Intel IXP2400 network processor (NP). A content-aware switch can optimize cluster-based server architectures by examining requests and distributing them to servers on the basis of application-level information. A network-processor-based switch can reduce HTTP processing latency and improve packet throughput

Keywords

Internet; client-server systems; computer architecture; microprocessor chips; network servers; packet switching; telecommunication network routing; transport protocols; workstation clusters; ENP2611 board; HTTP processing latency; Intel IXP2400 network processor; Internet traffic; Web server; cluster-based server architecture; distributed-server system; network processor-based content-aware switch; packet throughput; server cluster; virtual Internet protocol; Delay; Explosives; Internet; Network servers; Packet switching; Protocols; Search engines; Switches; Telecommunication traffic; Web server; ENP2611; Intel IXP 2400; content-aware switch; network processor;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Micro, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0272-1732

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MM.2006.46

Filename

1650181