NetFPGA

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NetFPGA

• Greg Watson
• Prof. Nick McKeown, Martin Casado
• High Performance Networking Group
• Stanford
• and many Stanford students

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NetFPGA

• Board
• Software
• Vendor Tools
• Class material

Teach Network System design at under-graduate and
graduate level classes
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Overview

• Motivation
• Version 1
• CS344 Build an IP Router
• Version 2
• Research
• Where now?

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Motivation

• Provide practical experience in designing
  computer network systems (routers, switches, etc.)

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Version 1

• Custom board
• 3 FPGAs
• SRAM, 8 10Mb/s Ethernets
• Racked remote development and debugging!

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CS344 Build an IP Router

• 10 week class. Masters/PhD level.
• Build a router with
• Hardware path for valid IP.
• Software path for ARP, OSPF, invalid.
• Provide CLI to manage the router.

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CS344 setup
NetFPGA
Campus Internet
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Version 2

• Issues with Version 1
• Custom Rack (expensive, complicated)
• Slow (10Mb/s)
• Software/hardware interface not ideal
• Old technology

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Version 2

• PCI, Four 1Gbps interfaces.

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Version 2
512Kx36 SRAM
512Kx36 SRAM
RocketIO on SATA
V2P30
Quad Eth PHY 4 x 1G
RocketIO on SATA
Spartan
FLASH
PCI 32_at_33MHz
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Typical Student design
Student Verilog (e.g. router)
Eth MAC
To SRAM
Eth MAC
To SRAM
Eth MAC
Eth MAC
registers
DMA
Virtex2Pro30
PCI 32_at_33MHz
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Research

• Why?
• Fast and easy to use
• Enough gates, RAM, and bandwidth to do real
  network systems
• RCP _at_ Stanford (congestion protocol)
• IDS _at_ ICSI
• Can touch every packet

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Where now

• Classroom
• Cheap, and easy to use
• Develop interesting classes
• Funding for support, testing, and development
• Exploit on-chip CPUs (embedded systems)
• Research
• EmuLAB/PlanetLab type configurations?
• Easy to use

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More information

• http//klamath.stanford.edu/nf2/