Utilizing Network Processors in Distributed Enterprise Environments

The integration of legacy systems and enterprise applications with novel communications, internet, or networking services creates the problems of mismatches, information integration and possibly, problems from the evolution of the systems themselves. Enterprise services to solve these problems are currently implemented via commodity server hardware or Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), which suffer from either poor performance or a lack of flexibility. This paper presents an alternative to implementing these services by using Network Processors (NPs) as fast, flexible, and cost-efficient network appliances. It characterizes the hardware and software requirements of NP-based enterprise services, and presents a case study of a real-world enterprise problem. We implement a solution service to the problem on the Intel IXP2400, and present evaluation results that generalize the strengths, weaknesses, and requirements of the NP's role as a platform for enterprise service deployment.