NEDG: Application Oriented Edge Routers

University Of California-Riverside, Riverside CA

Investigators

Abstract

This project revisits the role of the edge router, and develops novel architectures that lead to the design of an Application Oriented Edge Router. The router is highly ?intelligent? and provides advanced network services by moving packets to the application layer. Examples of such applications (services) are security and user protection, pricing, load balancing, multimedia, peer-to-peer (P2P) and VoIP. Novelty and Technical Merit: a. Application aware processing. Multithread algorithms and multi-core scheduling techniques are developed so as to increase throughput and reduce latency while preserving the QoS requirement of an application. b. Implementing through network processors. Application processing through programmable network processors (NPs) is also explored. New NP partitioning, processor allocation and scheduling schemes are developed to meet the requirements of various services. c. Service classification. The signature based packet classification techniques are extended to differentiate the incoming traffic based on required services. Broader impact: a. Industrial impact and technology transfer: The current projects from Cisco and Intel have complimentary effect and synergistic interaction with project. b. International collaboration: The active participation of Prof. Bin Liu in the project brings in long-term collaboration between UCR and Tsinghua University. c. Educational impact: Benchmark applications and results from the project are widely disseminated. The project also produces high quality Ph.D. graduates and involves Undergraduate students at UCR. d. Minority outreach plan: 30-40% of the UCR undergraduate body is minority students. As a result, this project has an amplified and direct impact on the outreach activities at UCR.