THE ARCHITECTURE AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A HIGH-SPEED HOST INTERFACE

In the design of a high-speed network, the host network interface is a critical component in achieving high end-to-end throughput. In this paper, some of the architectural issues involved in host interfacing are discussed. These include the appropriate partitioning of functionality between host and interface and the choice of mechanism for data movement into, out of, and within the host. The general issues are considered in a specific example: the realization of a highly flexible host interface for a 622 Mb/s asynchronous transfer mode network. The architecture of such an interface is described and the experimental results obtained from its prototype implementation are presented. The prototype will allow experimentation with a variety of scheduling and segmentation/ressembly algorithms, and with new transport protocols, while also delivering high bandwidth to the host.