The Design of a Programmable Edge Node with Hybrid Multi-Core Processors for Virtual Networks

Emerging new network applications challenge the existing Internet infrastructure and call for flexible and open network facilities that can provide virtual networks for conducting experiments or deploying new services. In this paper, we propose to use hybrid multi-core processors including general purpose ones and network processors as the main processing elements of a programmable edge node (PEN), an integral part of the virtualizable network substrate. We describe the design of the PEN and compare it with two newly proposed architectures. We present experiment results on the performance limitations of an existing design and show the potential of network processors in forwarding packets, isolating experiments and measurements, and offloading complex packet processing.