DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / JULY 28, 2003; VOL. 2 NO. 30    ( Table of Contents )

Breaking News - Networking:

NPF Forum Releases New Benchmarking Specifications

Continuing its mission to accelerate the adoption of network processing technologies through the creation and adoption of network processing standards and benchmarks, the Network Processing Forum (NPF) announced the release of new benchmarking specifications for measuring the performance of network processing elements. Specifically, the NPF extended its IP forwarding benchmark to include both the IPv6 Internet Protocol and a more robust set of routing tables in an updated IP Forwarding Application Level Benchmark Implementation Agreement (IA). The NPF also released two new benchmarking Implementation Agreements focused on fabrics: the Performance Testing Methodology for Fabric Benchmarking IA and the Switch Fabric Benchmark Test Suites IA. These two fabric IA's complete the set of switch fabric benchmark specifications that began with the switch fabric benchmarking framework that was announced in October of 2002.

These IA's delineate open, objective and reproducible tests, configurations and reporting formats that enables networking equipment designers and network processing element vendors to easily assess and compare the performance of similar network processing components and systems. All three Benchmark Implementation Agreements are available for free on the NPF Web site at www.npforum.org/techinfo/approved.shtml.

"The NPF is pleased to provide network processing system benchmarks for the next generation Internet protocol and switch fabrics," said Claude Basso, board member of the NPF. "We will continue to deliver standards and benchmarks that enhance the value proposition of network processing technologies."

Forwarding Application Level Benchmark

This enhanced agreement specifies industry standard measures of the forwarding performance of network processing systems with native IPv4, native IPv6 and mixed IPv4/IPv6 traffic. The IA details the terminology, test configuration, benchmark tests, routing tables and reporting formats needed to measure and publish the forwarding performance of the system being tested. The tests are grouped into three categories: data plane tests, control plane tests, and concurrent data plane and control plane tests.

The data plane tests include measures of the aggregate forwarding rate, throughput, latency, loss ratio, overload forwarding rate, and system power consumption. Different traffic combinations are used including 100 percent native IPv4, 50 percent IPv4/50 percent IPv6, and 100 percent IPv6. The control plane tests include measures of forwarding table update rates. Lastly, the concurrent data plane and control plane tests include measures of concurrent forwarding table updates on the forwarding rate.

A key specification challenge to relevant and comparable performance measurement of routing under both protocols was establishing base routing tables that represent multiple real world environments (e.g. core vs edge routers). The initial IP Forwarding Benchmark IA for IPv4 utilized a snapshot of the MAE-West route table with approximately 30,000 routes. In the new expanded IA, a snapshot of a Telstra (AS1221) backbone route table is used with approximately 120,000 routes. Route tables containing 1 million routes and 10,000 routes are also provided. These tables were generated from the Telstra table using NPF developed tools (also available) that preserve important route table characteristics such as prefix length distribution and depth distribution. For IPv6, the routing table from AS4554 (an IPv6 backbone router) is used. Both a base IPv6 routing table of 400 entries and an IPv6 route table with 1,200 entries are provided.

About The Switch Fabric Benchmark Specifications

These two new IA's join three earlier fabric related specifications (Switch Fabric Benchmarking Framework, Fabric Traffic Models and Fabric Performance Metrics) in a complete suite of switch fabric performance measurement and methodology.

The Performance Testing Methodology for Fabric Benchmarking IA defines the rules and working procedures to be used for fabric benchmarking. The IA specifies the system configurations needed for testing, the parameters needed for system set up and the procedural rules for testing. Users of this benchmark will be able to independently verify system performance across multiple vendors.

The Switch Fabric Benchmark Test Suites IA details the actual switch fabric tests and reporting formats. The tests are divided into three suites including hardware benchmarks, arbitration benchmarks and multicast benchmarks. Each suite includes multiple tests with their own test objective, arrival pattern, test procedure, and result presentation instructions. The three main performance metrics include latency, accepted vs offered bandwidth and jitter.

Network Processing manufacturers that wish to certify the performance results of their benchmark tests must submit their products to a third party independent auditor and certification authority such as the Tolly Group. Once testing is completed, the NPF provides the "NPF Certified" mark to the manufacturer validating that the benchmark results are in complete compliance with NPF benchmark specifications.

"The IP forwarding and switch fabric benchmarks will give system design engineers the objective data they need to select the best network processing components for a given networking solution," said Serge Audenaert, chair of the NPF benchmarking working group. "This will enable System OEMs to bring network processing-based products to market quicker and more cost effectively."

About the Network Processing Forum

Founded in 2001, the Network Processing Forum (NPF) is an international industry consortium of networking semiconductor, software and OEM manufacturers accelerating the adoption of network processing technologies through the development and implementation of network processing standards and benchmarks. By establishing standard interfaces and benchmarks, the NPF helps semiconductor manufacturers, software developers, services companies and system OEM's lower development costs, shorten design cycles, reduce product time-to-market and increase product time-in-market. The Forum includes members from around the world that provide network processing products and services globally. For more information, visit the NPF Web site at www.npforum.org.