The control plane is concerned with the routing of packets and with
providing a start or end point.
Core
A core may include several lcores or threads if the processor supports
hyperthreading.
Core Components
A set of libraries provided by the DPDK, including eal, ring, mempool,
mbuf, timers, and so on.
CPU
Central Processing Unit
CRC
Cyclic Redundancy Check
ctrlmbuf
An mbuf carrying control data.
Data Plane
In contrast to the control plane, the data plane in a network architecture
are the layers involved when forwarding packets. These layers must be
highly optimized to achieve good performance.
DIMM
Dual In-line Memory Module
Doxygen
A documentation generator used in the DPDK to generate the API reference.
DPDK
Data Plane Development Kit
DRAM
Dynamic Random Access Memory
EAL
The Environment Abstraction Layer (EAL) provides a generic interface that
hides the environment specifics from the applications and libraries. The
services expected from the EAL are: development kit loading and launching,
core affinity/ assignment procedures, system memory allocation/description,
PCI bus access, inter-partition communication.
FIFO
First In First Out
FPGA
Field Programmable Gate Array
GbE
Gigabit Ethernet
HW
Hardware
HPET
High Precision Event Timer; a hardware timer that provides a precise time
reference on x86 platforms.
ID
Identifier
IOCTL
Input/Output Control
I/O
Input/Output
IP
Internet Protocol
IPv4
Internet Protocol version 4
IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6
lcore
A logical execution unit of the processor, sometimes called a hardware
thread.
KNI
Kernel Network Interface
L1
Layer 1
L2
Layer 2
L3
Layer 3
L4
Layer 4
LAN
Local Area Network
LPM
Longest Prefix Match
master lcore
The execution unit that executes the main() function and that launches
other lcores.
mbuf
An mbuf is a data structure used internally to carry messages (mainly
network packets). The name is derived from BSD stacks. To understand the
concepts of packet buffers or mbuf, refer to TCP/IP Illustrated, Volume 2:
The Implementation.
Out Of Order (execution of instructions within the CPU pipeline)
NUMA
Non-uniform Memory Access
PCI
Peripheral Connect Interface
PHY
An abbreviation for the physical layer of the OSI model.
pktmbuf
An mbuf carrying a network packet.
PMD
Poll Mode Driver
QoS
Quality of Service
RCU
Read-Copy-Update algorithm, an alternative to simple rwlocks.
Rd
Read
RED
Random Early Detection
RSS
Receive Side Scaling
RTE
Run Time Environment. Provides a fast and simple framework for fast packet
processing, in a lightweight environment as a Linux* application and using
Poll Mode Drivers (PMDs) to increase speed.
Rx
Reception
Slave lcore
Any lcore that is not the master lcore.
Socket
A physical CPU, that includes several cores.
SLA
Service Level Agreement
srTCM
Single Rate Three Color Marking
SRTD
Scheduler Round Trip Delay
SW
Software
Target
In the DPDK, the target is a combination of architecture, machine,
executive environment and toolchain. For example:
i686-native-linuxapp-gcc.