TAMING THE COMPLEXITY OF NETWORK SYSTEM DESIGN

摘要

Various alternatives have been employed for high-performance networking and packet processing. Traditionally, ASICs have been used for the highest-level requirements. But their significant expense, expanded time-to-market (TTM), increased risk, and inflexibility often outweigh their speed and high-volume cost benefits. At the other end of the spectrum, general-purpose processors provide significant cost, flexibility, and TTM benefits but can't handle applications needing gigabit-class performance. Specialized merchant silicon splits the difference but is often limited in function and doesn't allow for sufficient end-product differentiation. Also, merchant silicon markets are often too small to support attractive pricing.