Fast Packet Research Articles

The photochemical ring opening reaction of chromene as seen by transient absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy

In this paper we investigate the photochromic ring-opening reaction of 2,2-diphenyl-5,6-benzo(2H)chromene. In particular, we study the uncertainties and contradictions in various published reaction models using a combination of transient absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy with femtosecond time resolution. We propose a simplified reaction scheme which is in good agreement with theoretical studies. Here, photoexcitation populates a Franck-Condon state, whose fast vibrational wave packet motion, vibrational relaxation, bond-alternation and/or solvent rearrangement processes occur on the sub-picosecond timescale. Our data suggest that the resulting excited state minimum with picosecond lifetime still features structural characteristics of the closed form. Subsequently, the ring-opened photoproducts are formed in a concerted step from the excited state. The velocity of the photoreaction hence only depends on the time that the molecule needs to reach the transition region between the ground and excited states where the crucial bond breakage occurs.

Fast Deep Packet Inspection with a Dual Finite Automata

Deep packet inspection, in which packet payloads are matched against a large set of patterns, is an important algorithm in many networking applications. Nondeterministic Finite Automaton (NFA) and Deterministic Finite Automaton (DFA) are the basis of existing algorithms. However, both NFA and DFA are not ideal for real-world rule sets: NFA has the minimum storage, but the maximum memory bandwidth; while DFA has the minimum memory bandwidth, but the maximum storage. Specifically, NFA and DFA cannot handle the presence of character sets, wildcards, and repetitions of character sets or wildcards in real-world rule sets. In this paper, we propose and evaluate a dual Finite Automaton (dual FA) to address these shortcomings. The dual FA consists of a linear finite automaton (LFA) and an extended deterministic finite automaton (EDFA). The LFA is simple to implement, and it provides an alternative approach to handle the repetition of character sets and wildcards (which could otherwise cause the state explosion problem in a DFA) without increasing memory bandwidth. We evaluate the automaton in real-world rule sets using different synthetic payload streams. The results show that dual FA can reduce the number of states up to five orders of magnitude while their memory bandwidth is close to minimum.

Importance of Coherence Protocols with Network Applications on Multicore Processors

As Internet and information technology have continued developing, the necessity for fast packet processing in computer networks has also grown in importance. All emerging network applications require deep packet classification as well as security-related processing and they should be run at line rates. Hence, network speed and the complexity of network applications will continue increasing and future network processors should simultaneously meet two requirements: high performance and high programmability. We will show that the performance of single processors will not be sufficient to support future demands. Instead, we will have to turn to multicore processors, which can exploit the parallelism in network workloads. In this paper, we focus on the cache coherence protocols which are central to the design of multicore-based network processors. We investigate the effects of two main categories of various cache coherence protocols with several network workloads on multicore processors. Our simulation results show that token protocols have a significantly higher performance than directory protocols. With an 8-core configuration, token protocols improves the performance compared to directory protocols by a factor of nearly 4 on average.

Efficient Trie Braiding in Scalable Virtual Routers

Many popular algorithms for fast packet forwarding and filtering rely on the tree data structure. Examples are the trie-based IP lookup and packet classification algorithms. With the recent interest in network virtualization, the ability to run multiple virtual router instances on a common physical router platform is essential. An important scaling issue is the number of virtual router instances that can run on the platform. One limiting factor is the amount of high-speed memory and caches available for storing the packet forwarding and filtering data structures. An ideal goal is to achieve good scaling while maintaining total isolation among the virtual routers. However, total isolation requires maintaining separate data structures in high-speed memory for each virtual router. In this paper, we study the case where some sharing of the forwarding and filtering data structures is permissible and develop algorithms for combining tries used for IP lookup and packet classification. Specifically, we develop a mechanism called trie braiding that allows us to combine tries from the data structures of different virtual routers into just one compact trie. Two optimal braiding algorithms and a faster heuristic algorithm are presented, and the effectiveness is demonstrated using the real-world data sets.

A QoS-aware Packet Scheduling Scheme in High-speed Downlink Packet Access Networks

Fast packet scheduling is a key feature of packet-based data services which are 3G/4G wireless networks such as Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution, High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), and High Data Rate. In this paper, we propose Anticipated Proportionally Optimal (APO), a new packet scheduling scheme with Quality of Service (QoS) support for hybrid of real and non-real-time services over HSDPA networks. The APO scheduling algorithm is based on the effective channel anticipation model. In contrast to the traditional schemes, the proposed method is implemented based on a cyclic non-work-conserving discipline. Simulation results indicate capability of proposed scheme to maximize the channel usage efficiency compared to other exist scheduling methods. Results also present fair tradeoff between channel capacity and desired QoS for real-time services.

Bit Weaving: A Non-Prefix Approach to Compressing Packet Classifiers in TCAMs

Ternary content addressable memories (TCAMs) have become the de facto standard in industry for fast packet classification. Unfortunately, TCAMs have limitations of small capacity, high power consumption, high heat generation, and high cost. The well-known range expansion problem exacerbates these limitations as each classifier rule typically has to be converted to multiple TCAM rules. One method for coping with these limitations is to use compression schemes to reduce the number of TCAM rules required to represent a classifier. Unfortunately, all existing compression schemes only produce prefix classifiers. Thus, they all miss the compression opportunities created by non-prefix ternary classifiers. In this paper, we propose bit weaving, the first non-prefix compression scheme. Bit weaving is based on the observation that TCAM entries that have the same decision and whose predicates differ by only one bit can be merged into one entry by replacing the bit in question with . Bit weaving consists of two new techniques, bit swapping and bit merging, to first identify and then merge such rules together. The key advantages of bit weaving are that it runs fast, it is effective, and it is composable with other TCAM optimization methods as a pre/post-processing routine. We implemented bit weaving and conducted experiments on both real-world and synthetic packet classifiers. Our experimental results show the following: 1) bit weaving is an effective standalone compression technique (it achieves an average compression ratio of 23.6%); 2) bit weaving finds compression opportunities that other methods miss. Specifically, bit weaving improves the prior TCAM optimization techniques of TCAM Razor and Topological Transformation by an average of 12.8% and 36.5%, respectively.

Efficient Management and Packets Forwarding for Multimedia Flows

Well known requirements for handling multimedia flows in routers are resource reservation and fast packets forwarding. The former takes into account the quite stable and long lasting bandwidth occupation, whereas the latter takes into account the large number of packets routed along the same path. Many techniques have been proposed and standardized to face these requirements, but their application is often complex, expensive and sometimes limited by the need of agreements between network managers of the many networks and Autonomous Systems. This paper introduces IMFM (Integrated Multimedia Flows Management), an innovative, scalable, and extremely lightweight technique to provide routers deterministic and dynamic resource reservation and a fast forwarding table lookup. It is based on a distributed linked data structure that allows direct (searchless) access to entries in the routers' tables, extending the resource reservation algorithm REBOOK. Unlike conventional virtual circuits, IMFM does not require any interaction with (nor change in) the underlying routing protocols and autonomously recovers from errors, faults and route changes. If information stored in its data structure becomes obsolete, packet handling is reverted to best-effort, lookup-driven forwarding, so that packets are never dropped nor misrouted. IMFM can be gradually deployed, providing a framework for congestion avoidance solutions and increasing the forwarding speed in IMFM-aware router even along partially IMFM-unaware paths. IMFM has been fully implemented. Experiments have been designed to demonstrate its feasibility and the measured performance is reported and compared with existing techniques.

Towards ubiquitous video services through scalable video coding and cross-layer optimization

Video content as one of the key features of future Internet services should be made ubiquitously available to users. Moreover, this should be done in a timely fashion and with adequate support for Quality of Service (QoS). Although providing the required coverage for ubiquitous video services, wireless networks, however, pose many challenges especially for QoS-sensitive video streaming due to their inadequate or varying capacity. In this article, we propose a cross-layer video adaptation solution, which may be used for optimizing network resource consumption and user experienced quality of video streaming in wireless networks; thus improving the availability of video services to mobile users. Our solution utilizes the flexibility of the Scalable Video Coding (SVC) technology and combines fast and fair Medium Access Control (MAC) layer packet scheduling with long-term application layer adaptation. The proposed solution both improves the usage of network resources by dropping video data based on its priority when the network is congested but also reduces efficiently the number of useless packet transfers in a congested network. We evaluate our solution with a simulation study under varying network congestion conditions. We find that already application layer adaptation gains over 60% less base layer losses, momentous for SVC video decodability and quality, than in the case without any adaptation. When our MAC layer scheduling is enabled, nearly a zero loss situation with respect to packet losses carrying base layers can be attained, resulting in peak-signal-to-noise ratio values very close to the original.

Comprehensive protection of data-partitioned video for broadband wireless IPTV streaming

This paper examines the threat to video streaming from slow and fast fading, traffic congestion, and channel packet drops. The proposed response is a combination of: rateless channel coding, which is adaptively applied; data-partitioned source coding to exploit prioritized packetization; and duplicate slice provision, which is the focus of the evaluation in this paper. The paper also considers the distribution of intra-refresh macroblocks as a means of avoiding sudden data rate increases. When error bursts occur, this paper shows that duplicate slices are certainly necessary but this provision is more effective for medium quality video than it is for high quality video. The percentage of intra-refresh macroblocks can be low and still reduce the impact of temporal error propagation.

Fast Packet Classification Algorithms

Fast Packet Classification Algorithms

A Storage Scheme for Fast Packet Buffers in Network Processor

With the Internet services increased explosively, the requirement for network bandwidth is rigorous. Upon the extraordinary development of process capability, Memory access control has become a key factor that impacts the performance of network processor. The paper proposed a storage management for fast packet buffers in network processor, which can enhance the utilization of bandwidth. Experiment results shows that this approach improved the rates of accessing to memory system in network processor remarkably.

Synthetic aperture radar image compression using tree-structured edge-directed orthogonal wavelet packet transform

Currently, wavelet-based coding algorithms are popular for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image compression, which is very important for reducing the cost of data storage and transmission in relatively slow channels. However, standard wavelet transform is limited by spatial isotropy of its basis functions that is not completely adapted to represent image entities like edges or textures, which means wavelet-based coding algorithms are suboptimal to image compression. In this paper, a novel tree-structured edge-directed orthogonal wavelet packet transform is proposed for SAR image compression. Inspired by the intrinsic geometric structure of images, the new transform improves the performance of standard wavelet by filtering along the regular direction first and then along the orthogonal direction with directional lifting structure. The cost function of best basis selection is designed by textural and directional information for tree-structured edge-directed orthogonal wavelet packet transform. The new transform including speckle reduction can be used to construct SAR image coder with the embedded block coding with optimal truncation for transform coefficients, and arithmetic coding for additional information. The experimental results show that the proposed approach outperforms JPEG2000 and Fast wavelet packet (FWP), both visually and item of PSNR values.

Design and Implementation of a Fast Dynamic Packet Filter

This paper presents Swift, a packet filter for high-performance packet capture on commercial off-the-shelf hardware. The key features of the Swift include: 1) extremely lowfilter update latency for dynamic packet filtering, and 2) gigabits-per-second high-speed packet processing. Based on complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architecture (ISA), Swift achieves the former with an instruction set design that avoids the need for compilation and security checking, and the latter by mainly utilizing single instruction, multiple data (SIMD). We implement Swift in the Linux 2.6 kernel for both i386 and ×86-64 architectures and extensively evaluate its dynamic and static filtering performance on multiple machines with different hardware setups. We compare Swift to BPF (the BSD packet filter)--the de facto standard for packet filtering in modern operating systems--and hand-coded optimized C filters that are used for demonstrating possible performance gains. For dynamic filtering tasks, Swift is at least three orders of magnitude faster than BPF in terms of filter update latency. For static filtering tasks, Swift outperforms BPF up to three times in terms of packet processing speed and achieves much closer performance to the optimized C filters. We also show that Swift can harness the processing power of hardware SIMD instructions by virtue of its SIMD-capable instruction set.

FPGEN: A fast, scalable and programmable traffic generator for the performance evaluation of high-speed computer networks

Testing today’s high-speed network equipment requires the generation of network traffic which is similar to the real Internet traffic at Gbps line rates. There are many software-based traffic generators which can generate packets according to different stochastic distributions. However, they are not suitable for high-speed hardware test platforms. This paper describes FPGEN (Fast Packet GENerator), a programmable random traffic generator which is entirely implemented on FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). FPGEN can generate variable packet sizes and traffic with Poisson and Markov-modulated on–off statistics at OC-48 rate per interface. Our work that is presented in this paper includes the theoretical design of FPGEN, the hardware design of the FPGA-based traffic generator board (printed circuit board design and construction) and the implementation of FPGEN on FPGA. Our experimental study demonstrates that FPGEN can achieve both the desired rate and statistical properties for the generated traffic.

심층 패킷검사를 위한 정규표현식 패턴매칭 하드웨어 구조

최근의 네트워크 침입탐지 시스템들은 침입패턴을 나타내는 데 정규표현식을 사용하고 있으며 빠른 심층 패킷 검사를 위해서 하드웨어 기반의 패턴매칭이 필요하다. 하드웨어 기반 정규표현식 패턴매칭에 대한 많은 연구가 이루어졌으나 {10}과 같은 제한반복 연산자에 대한 구현은 제약이 있었다. 본 논문에서는 일반적인 정규표현식 서브패턴에 대한 제한반복을 더 낮은 하드웨어 복잡도로 구현할 수 있는 제한반복 블록 구조를 제시하였다. 제안된 제한반복 블록은 단일 문자, 고정길이 문자 뿐 만 아니라 일반적인 정규표현식 서브패턴의 제한반복 구현도 가능하다. 제안된 제한반복 블록 구조는 모든 제한반복을 펼치지 않고 구현할 수 있도록 하여 정규표현식 패턴매칭 하드웨어를 더 효율적으로 구현할 수 있도록 하였다. Network Intrusion Detection Systems use regular expression to represent malicious packets and hardware-based pattern matching is required for fast deep packet inspection. Although hardware architectures for implementing constraint repetition operators such as {10} were recently proposed, they have some limitation. In this paper, we propose hardware architecture supporting constraint repetitions of general regular expression sub-patterns with lower logic complexity. The subpatterns supported by the proposed contraint repetition architecture include general regular expression patterns as well as a single character and fixed length patterns. With the proposed building block, we can implement more efficiently regular expression pattern matching hardwares.

Quantitative determination of metabolization dynamics by a real-time 13CO2 breath test

We have developed a flow-through fast liver investigation packet (FLIP) to quantitatively measure the amount of exhaled 13CO2, as a result of liver metabolization processes. The FLIP system allows investigation of every single breath in real time. Line width variations due to interactions with other gas components disturb traditional measurements and limit their sensitivity to the ppm range. Detection of the complete breath volume and the spectrally fully resolved line shape allows sensitivity in the ppb range with a standard deviation of approximately 80 ppb, a prerequisite to quantitatively analyze liver metabolization processes.

An Investigation of Link Quality Assessment for Mobile Multi-hop and Multi-rate Wireless Networks

Wireless ad hoc networks will be an important component in future communication systems. The performance of wireless ad hoc networks can be improved by link quality-aware applications. Wireless link quality is dynamic in nature, especially in mobile scenarios. Therefore, accurate and fast packet delivery ratio estimation is a prerequisite to good performance in mobile, multi-hop and multi-rate wireless ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose a novel packet delivery ratio estimation method that improves the accuracy and responsiveness of the packet delivery ratio estimation. The proposed link quality estimation components are implemented in a IEEE 802.11b/g test-bed. The experiment results show that the accuracy of the packet delivery ratio estimation can improve up to 50% in mobile scenarios without introducing overhead. We also show the end-to-end performance impact of this improved estimation on route selection using different routing metrics and configurations. The measurement results show that our packet delivery ratio method leads to better route selection in the form of increased end-to-end throughput compared to traditional methods, which respond slowly to the link dynamics.

Improving IPS by network processors

Many present applications usually require high communication throughputs. Multiprocessor nodes and multicore architectures, as well as programmable NICs (Network Interface Cards) provide new opportunities to take advantage of the available multigigabits per second link bandwidths. Nevertheless, to achieve adequate communication performance levels efficient parallel processing of network tasks and interfaces should be considered. In this paper, we leverage network processors as heterogeneous microarchitectures with several cores that implement multithreading and are suited for packet processing, to investigate on the use of parallel processing to accelerate the network interface, and thus the network applications developed above it. More specifically, we have implemented an intrusion prevention system (IPS) with such a network processor. We describe the IPS we have developed that after its offloaded implementation allows faster packet processing of both normal and corrupted traffic. The benefits from placing the IPS close to the network, by using specialized network processors, give many times lower latency and higher bandwidth available to the legitimate traffic.

Fast packet size adaptation based on Rician distribution mobility range estimation

A dynamic algorithm to optimize the packet size in wireless mobile networks using Rician distribution estimation (RDE) of the mobility range is presented. The packet size adaptation algorithm is based on an estimation of the bit error rate (BER) and the dynamic link distance statistics to maximize the communication performance through automatic repeat request (ARQ). The results using the dynamically estimated probability density function (PDF) of the link distance show significant improvement in both throughput and utilization when used in rapidly changing mobile environments.

On the Effective Throughput Gain of Cooperative Diversity with a Fast Retransmission Scheme for Delay-Sensitive Flows

This work addresses the problem of a fast packet retransmission scheme intended for transporting delay-sensitive flows in a Cooperative Diversity (CD) environment. This cooperative fast retransmission scheme exploits the advantages of the CD environment and hybrid Automatic-Repeat-reQuest (ARQ), while allowing retransmission just one time via a cooperating user (i.e., partner) or via both the sender and the partner simultaneously. Complementary link packets are used for the retransmission whose policy can be adjusted on the basis of the qualities of channels among the sender, the partner and the receiver, as well as the application layer protocol data unit size, using the application throughput as the objective. For this scheme, we first derive the application throughput formulas which are then verified via simulations. Next, the CD-based optimized fast retransmission scheme is shown able to achieve better effective throughput (goodput) than other CD-based or non-CD-based ARQ schemes in various Nakagami-m slow-fading environments. As a result, the proposed scheme should be an excellent fast retransmission mechanism for real-time multimedia transport in many CD environments.