miNI: reducing network interface memory requirements with dynamic handle lookup

Recent work in low-latency, high-bandwidth communication systems has resulted in building user–level Network InControllers (NICs) and communication abstractions that support direct access from the NIC to applications virtual memory to avoid both data copies and operating system intervention. Such mechanisms require the ability to directly manipulate user–level communication buffers for delivering data and achieving protection. To provide such abilities, NICs must maintain appropriate translation data structures. Most user–level NICs manage these data structures statically, which results both in high memory requirements for the NIC and limitations on the total size and number of communication buffers that a NIC can handle. In this paper, we categorize the types of data structures used by NICs and propose dynamic handle lookup as a mechanism to manage such data structures dynamically. We implement our approach in a modern, user–level communication system and evaluate our syste...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: ICS
• Authors: Reza Azimi, Angelos Bilas
• Keywords: Communication Systems, Data Structures, ICS 2003, Theoretical Computer Science, User–level Communication