Workstation Network Interfaces for 10 Gbps and Beyond

The increasing requirements of the government¿s scientific visualization and collaboration software in the short term and the demands of multimedia end-users in the near future require dramatic advances in workstation throughput. Desktop network interface throughput must correspond to the bandwidth available on current high performance networks. To meet these next-generation networking goals, this effort seeks to develop a novel implementation of a high-speed data path suitable for workstation throughputs of 10 gigabits per second and beyond. It incorporates industry-standard, high-speed interfaces into a modified workstation architecture and integrates a rapid-execution protocol stack with a middleware solution. In Phase I, the feasibility of the modified network-centric workstation architecture was proven, the performance of the PCI Express interconnect was verified, and the validity of an FPGA-based approach was confirmed. It was shown that this approach had far-reaching potential for next-generation networking needs. In the Phase II project, a prototype network interface controller will be developed and the workstation architecture will be substantially enhanced to provide previously unrealizable throughput to the end-user. The prototype will focus on reconfigurability, to provide a powerful and versatile solution for a variety of next-generation networking needs. Commercial Applications and other Benefits as described by the awardee: The proposed system will greatly enhance tera-scale collaboration and applications which require real-time distributed processing. This approach scales well from local to wide area networks, making it ideal for high-performance LANs and SANs, grid computing applications, and wide-area ultra high speed networks. The inherent reconfigurability of our NIC is uniquely suited to the hybrid circuit/packet-switched networks envisioned for the next-generation DOE network infrastructure. In the future, the increasing demands of large multimedia and archival applications will necessitate a system such as the one we propose.