Experiences with gigabit/s LANs on commodity PCs

The increasing demand for high-performance voice, video, image and data communication networks has challenged researchers to design innovative network architectures and network interfaces. Improvements in processor and network performances, along with memory availability, are enabling support for high-performance applications such as scientific visualization, video conferencing, and audio/video streaming on the World Wide Web. We have witnessed considerable efforts over the last few years to improve the performance of network-based applications running over high-speed networks. This paper explores experimentally the performance benefits to application developers of a network interface architecture designed primarily for enabling high-performance, low-latency applications using minimal host processor cycles. We compare the performance of the network interface architecture with the traditional network interface architecture, using commodity PCs connected by gigabit local area networks running protocols such as TCP/IP. We argue that such an architecture will eliminate the current bottlenecks in end-systems connected to gigabit networks and consequently allows users to reap the full benefits of high-speed networks available today.