Application-to-application priority with STREAMS

STREAMS-based protocol stacks have become integral components of many desktop operating systems. In this paper, we explore the UNIX STREAMS architecture in providing priority to networked applications at the end system. We modified the underlying network device driver (a STREAMS-based Ethernet device driver) to enable demultiplexing of packets based on their priorities. We explored the benefits of our approach by conducting several performance tests. Using the modified Ethernet driver combined with the priority STREAMS offers, our test results yield a 550% improvement over the traditional approach where no priority is used in packet delivery to end user applications.