Over the past couple of years, PF_RING has been enhanced to exploit innovations in computer hardware. In particular the availability of multicore systems and efficient controllers such as those introduced by Intel with the i7 family (in particular Nehelem and Sandy Bridge) has allowed applications to spread their load across all available processors (24 cores in dual-CPU Westmere systems). In addition to this, modern 82599-based 10 Gbit network adapters feature hardware-based packet filtering and prioritization across RX queues, have opened up a whole world of opportunities.
For this reason in the past months, PF_RING and in particular TNAPI has been greatly enhanced to support all the above listed features. In order to better give an idea of what PF_RING can do for you, and also give an outlook of new possibilities offered combining it with all these hardware innovations, I have written a few papers that will be presented at leading conferences. For all those who cannot attend them, you can read them online.
- Towards Monitoring Programmability in Future Internet: challenges and solutions
Proceeding of 21st Tyrrhenian Workshop on Digital Communications. - Wire-Speed Hardware-Assisted Traffic Filtering with Mainstream Network Adapters
Proceedings of NEMA 2010. - High Speed Network Traffic Analysis with Commodity Multi-core Systems
Proceedings of IMC 2010.
Another interesting paper I have not written but that I suggest you to read is Design considerations for efficient network applications with Intel® multi-core processor-based systems on Linux that has been written by Joseph Gasparakis and Peter P Waskiewicz, Jr. who are also working with me on 10 Gbit network monitoring.