A resource efficient content inspection system for next generation Smart NICs

The aggregate power consumption of the Internet is increasing at an alarming rate, due in part to the rapid increase in the number of connected edge devices such as desktop PCs. Despite being left idle 75% of the time, 90% of PCs have their power management features disabled. Consequently, much recent research has focused on reducing power consumption of Internet edge devices. One such method for reducing PC power consumption is by augmenting the network interface card (NIC) with enhanced processing capabilities. These capabilities pave the way for green computing by allowing the PC to transition to a low-power sleep state while the NIC responds to network traffic on behalf of the PC - a technique known as power proxying. However, such a Smart-NIC (SNIC) requires specialized low-power, resource-constrained processing, and architectural features in order to realize such capabilities. In this paper, we present a NIC-based packet content inspection system for power proxying and network intrusion detection. We use a novel partitioned TCAM technique that results in 87% energy savings and a 62% lower energy-delay product than existing non-partitioned router-based techniques, thus making our technique highly suitable for SNIC-based deployment.