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Low-level programming is machine-oriented and sits close to computer peripherals. Low-level programming allows the programmer to adapt the processor to precise minimum memory usage requirements while maintaining high performance.

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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

An introduction to low-level programming

A programming language could be described as a way of translating a programmer's intentions into machine code that can be understood by a processor. There is much information about high- and low-level programming languages available from various sources. How to tell them apart? Low-level programming languages allow for unambiguous and precise control over exactly what machine code will be the result of a compilation. In high-level languages, the algorithms select the instructions, often simplifying them and not allowing for their modification.
Multiple authors

Multiple authors

on Mar 24, 2022
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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

What are SmartNICs? The different types and features

Nowadays, network applications have evolved to provide more complex and user-oriented features. This evolution comes with a cost: increased CPU resource usage on the server side. For that reason, a solution that enables network function offloading and improves application performance is sorely needed. According to an Intel report, only 2% of respondents don't plan to deploy SmartNICs in the near future. This number is meager, but it could be useful to consider why this small group remains unconvinced.
Adam Detko

Adam Detko

on Dec 6, 2021
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NETWORKS
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

GPU in computer networks — how to speed up traffic processing

We are almost always online in our hyper-connected world. In just 10 years, the number of active device connections rose from 8.8 billion in 2010 to 21.6 billion in 2020, and it is expected to further increase to 41.2 billion by 2025 (according to Statista data). This rapid growth raises new technical issues regarding network traffic control and processing. Especially when we combine them with the development of 5G, a new standard offering peak data rates of up to 20 Gbps and supposedly supporting a 100-fold increase in traffic capacity and network efficiency.
Michał Niciejewski

Michał Niciejewski

on Sep 30, 2021
Thumbnail of an article about P4-programmable smartNIC controlled by ONOS (video)
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
NETWORKS

P4-programmable smartNIC controlled by ONOS (video)

The traditional NIC (Network Interface Card) is a relatively simple device equipped with Ethernet interface(s) and used to enable connectivity between machines. SmartNICs, by contrast, offer much more sophisticated capabilities and allow you to perform advanced operations on packets. SmartNICs are thus perfectly suited to optimize network performance in a data center, especially those that are programmable and offer the computing resources required.
Multiple authors

Multiple authors

on Sep 29, 2020
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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
NETWORKS

SmartNICs with P4 support

In the first part of this blogpost we discuss the idea of using smartNIC solutions to optimize network performance in a data center. In the second part, we review the currently available (July 2020) smartNIC solutions that can be programmed with P4. A paradigm of edge-computing has been gaining in popularity of late. The term itself can refer to many sub-technologies and have many meanings. One of them is the existence, next to the centralized, large data center, of those small or very small, located closer to the end-user.
Paweł Parol

Paweł Parol

on Jul 13, 2020
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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
NETWORKS

P4 Network Programming Language — what is it all about?

The programming language P4 is gaining in popularity in the network industry and is considered the next step in the SDN evolution. In this blog post, I will take a closer look at P4 and try to show why it is so important. Network devices like switches or routers are most commonly designed ”bottom-up.” The switch vendors that offer products to their clients usually rely on external chips from 3rd party silicon vendors. The chip is the heart of the system and in practice determines how device OS is realized and what functionality it can offer.
Paweł Parol

Paweł Parol

on Apr 22, 2020
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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
NETWORKS

How can DPDK access devices from user space?

DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit) is a set of libraries for implementing user space drivers for NICs (Network Interface Controllers). It provides a set of abstractions which allows a sophisticated packet processing pipeline to be programmed. But how does DPDK work? How is it able to access the hardware directly? How does it communicate with the hardware? Why does it require a UIO module (Userspace input-output)? What are hugepages and why are they so crucial? In this blog post I will try to explain, with a reasonable amount of detail, how a standard kernel space NIC driver works, how a user space program can access hardware and what can be gained from having it do so.
Dariusz Sosnowski

Dariusz Sosnowski

on Aug 22, 2019
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