Kernel latency for handling the Network traffic

[michi1 at michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com]

Hi!

On 09:47 Thu 03 May     , Abu Rasheda wrote:
> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 6:54 AM,
> <michi1 at michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com> wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > On 16:33 Thu 03 May     , Suresh Kumar Subramanian wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I am building the router based on linux kernel.
> >>
> >> The hardware details are below,
> >> 2 - 64 bit quad core processor (3Ghz core).
> >> RAM-  24GB RAM.
> >> PCI express slot- connected with Quad Port 100Mbps Ethernet adapter -2. (so total 8 ethernet interfaces)
> >>
> >>
> >> I just want to calculate the maximum traffic the  router can handle..?.
> >>
> >> The maximum traffic could be, also 8  ports(100Mbps) * 2 directions = 1600Mbps.
> >>
> >> Can this system(kernel + hardware) handle this much traffic. (Assume the best case)?
> >
> > Yes, it can. I have seen a benchmark which basically said that a single quad
> > core cpu with ~3GHz was enough for about 4 links with 10 *gigabit* each.
> 
> What is the packet size ?

It was ~10 million packets per second with 500 bytes packet size, if I
remember correctly. The speed is highly depending on packet size. Actually
packets per second is actually a better unit than (k/m/g)bits per second. I
mostly care about the 500 bytes packet size values in benchmarks because
this is what I think is a good approximate for the average size in most
networks. However, the 64 byte packet size values might also be interesting
when dealing with "weird" applications or DoS attacks.

	-Michi
-- 
programing a layer 3+4 network protocol for mesh networks
see http://michaelblizek.twilightparadox.com