NXG06-6: On the Efficient Implementation of Pipelined Heaps for Network Processing

Priority queues are often used in many network processing applications. Applications include sophisticated per-flow scheduling for providing advanced quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees, fast packet buffer memory management, and exact maintenance of statistics counters for real-time network measurements. In all these applications, the priority queues used must operate at very high-speeds, e.g. at 40 Gbps rates and beyond. One widely used data structure for implementing priority queues is the heap data structure. However, the logarithmic time complexity of heap operations is often too slow for increasingly fast line rates. To achieve constant time complexity, the pipelined heap structure has been proposed. In this paper, we describe new architecture techniques for the efficient implementation of pipelined heaps. In particular, we focus on aggressive memory management and pipelining techniques.