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...the lack information available to do so drove a diverse group of engineers from companies including Agere Systems, Alcatel, Avici, TeraCross, Vitesse, Zagros Networks and ZettaCom to develop a methodology, set of metrics and test suite for network processors and switch fabrics. The companies-all members of the Network Processing Forum (NPF)-then compiled their findings and produced a general approach to switch fabric benchmarking.
Because the switch fabric is one of the central building blocks in switching systems and routers, its capabilities and performance are vitally important to system designers involved in the development of new network technology. The Common Switch Interface (CSIX) was only recently established to provide a common interface around which system designers and the network industry can design. The CSIX defines a physical interface for transferring information between a traffic manager (network processor) and a switching fabric.
A CFrame, the base information unit transferred between traffic managers and a CSIX interface, essentially comprises a portion of data that has been segmented for acceptance by the CSIX. A typical fabric has three main logic sections: an ingress data path interface, which connects the ingress line cards to the switch fabric; a switch fabric that connects the ingress ports to egress ports; and an egress data path interface on the egress line card, to concentrate traffic from the switching function. This interface then forwards the traffic to an egress line card's network-processing subsystem on the same line card.
When developing the benchmarking specification, the switch fabric was treated as a black box that interfaced to the ingress and egress traffic manager over the CSIX. To enable system designers...
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