Kernel-bypass networking for fun and profit
Presented by
Matthew Chapman
Monday
11:50 a.m.–12:20 p.m.
Target audience:
Developer
Abstract
In the quest for ever lower networking latencies, there are a growing number of kernel-bypass TCP/IP stacks available from various network card vendors: for example Exablaze's exasock, Solarflare's OpenOnload, Mellanox's VMA, Myricom's DBL and Chelsio's WireDirect. All of these use the LD_PRELOAD mechanism to hijack AF_INET socket calls and direct them to a library and ultimately the network adapter. Some are entirely implemented in userspace, while others have in-kernel support components that allow more graceful connection handling across processes. In this talk I will discuss the how and why of these stacks, with a particular focus on the exasock stack developed by my team at Exablaze.
Presented by
Matthew Chapman
From an early age Matthew has liked to pull things apart to understand their inner workings. In this sense not much has changed, although he has also since worked out how to put things back together. Matthew likes to attack problems from first principles and to engineer clean systems that address particular problems as efficiently as possible, which is what led him to his current job at Exablaze developing high performance network cards and switches. He holds a BE in Computer Engineering and a PhD in Computer Science from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.