A Cluster-based Scalable and Extensible Edge Router Architecture

A major challenge in network router design is to provide both high packet forwarding performance and versatile packet processing capabilities at the edge of the Internet. This paper describes a scal-able and exetnsible edge router architecture called Suez, which supports a novel route aggregation caching scheme, a real-time link scheduling algorithm whose performance overhead is independent of the number of real-time ows, a highly eecient kernel extension mechanism to safely load networking software extensions dynamically, and an integrated resource scheduler which ensures that real-time ows with additional packet processing requirements still meet their end-to-end performance requirements. The rst Suez prototype is based on a cluster of Pentium-II PC's connected with a Myrinet switch with a 10-Gbit/sec backplane. Performance measurements show that, between each pair of Suez router nodes, this prototype can achieve a byte throughput of 445:7 Mbits/sec for large best-eeort packets (4096 bytes), a packet throughput of 91:5 Kpackets/sec for small best-eeort packets (64 bytes), a real-time byte throughput of 132:7 Mbits/sec, and a packet throughput of 196:3 Kpackets/sec for small (64 byte) real-time packets (64 byte). This prototype also demonstrates that it is possible to run dynamically loaded router extensions both safely and eeciently.