VortiQa Platform Services Package (PSP) - Freescale Semiconductor

Fact Sheet
VortiQa Platform Services
Package (PSP)
Overview
Over the past decade, the Linux ® OS
has gained significant momentum
in networking and other embedded
applications development. However,
networking software developers
were unable to leverage Linux OS
user space programming due to the
performance impact on networking
applications. The VortiQa PSP enables
networking development in the
Linux user space without impacting
the performance of networking
applications. Furthermore, the VortiQa
PSP provides application developers
with a simplified interface to leverage
the multicore QorIQ data plane
acceleration architecture (DPAA).
The VortiQa PSP is a middleware
framework to develop and maintain
networking applications in the Linux
user space. This framework provides
mechanisms to simplify Linux user
space software development on
Freescale’s QorIQ processors typically
offered by data plane software
development.
QorIQ processors add substantial
hardware-based acceleration
capabilities that provide large
performance gains in networking
applications, such as DPAA and other
acceleration engines. This provides
offloading assistance in many of the
demanding tasks encountered during
packet processing, such as crypto
algorithms, protocol parsing and
Signaling
Protocols
and
Management
Applications
packet queuing, buffer allocation and
freeing, pattern search and regular
expression engines. The VortiQa PSP
abstracts these hardware functions
to allow for easier application
developement in the Linux user space
without requiring a deep knowledge
of the hardware. Now, software
developers can rapidly create and
migrate networking applications to
the user space without any impact on
performance.
Platform VortiQa Service Platform Package Services Architecture Package Block (PSP) Diagram Block Diagram
PSP Instance
Packet Processing Applications
Session Tracking
Network Service Layer
(Network DB Synchronization)
(IP Forwarding, Bridging, Frag/Reassm Utilities, etc.)
User Space Drivers
(Ethernet, PPPoE, VLAN, SEC, PME, etc.)
Core Services
(Executing Engines, Timer, Mempool Managers, etc.)
USDPAA
Linux
Multicore SoC (Ethernet, SEC, PME, etc.)
® Memory
TCP/IP Stack
Mapped
PSP Instance PSP Elements Freescale SDK and Linux BSP
User Application Freescale QorIQ Processor
User Space
Kernel

The VortiQa PSP uses Linux user
space programming to deliver
substantial benefits to software
developers, including:
• Ease of development
• Ease of maintenance and support
• Improved performance
• Improved copyright protection
• Better availability of software libraries
VortiQa PSP Architecture
The VortiQa PSP software runs on Freescale’s
Linux software development kit and delivers
a hardware abstraction layer to provide
a consistent set of APIs across multiple
Freescale QorIQ processors. The VortiQa
PSP also configures the hardware drivers
and offers an execution context as requested
by the application developer. The hardware
abstraction hides hardware differences and
allows programming to take place in the
user space as opposed to the kernel space,
thereby providing the advantage of leveraging
software development investment across a
range of Freescale silicon platforms.
Execution Context
The VortiQa PSP enables execution context
similar to how the kernel provides execution
contexts to networking packet processing
applications. Both the hardware polling and
software polling methods are supported in the
packet processing within a given execution
context.
Hardware Drivers
The VortiQa PSP provides a hardware
driver layer in the Linux user space while
utilizing the zero copy method in the packet
processing. These drivers include support
for crypto and IPSec engines SEC 3.x and
SEC 4.x, Freescale’s pattern matching engine
2.0, DPAA FMAN driver and QorIQ eTSEC
Ethernet driver.
Communication Interface
The VortiQa PSP has a standard interface for
communication between the PSP applications
and others, such as command line interface,
Web server management or any other
daemon running as part of the overall system.
It is possible to utilize multiple simultaneous
communication channels.
Networking Service
The VortiQa PSP provides a network interface
manager, ARP data base facilities and
maintains routing tables and bridging facilities.
Session and Flow Manager
The VortiQa PSP provides session and flow
manager services which track the sessions
and provide NAT functions. Applications
requiring L4 session tracking can take
advantage of this service.
Generic Utility Library
The VortiQa PSP provides several
programming utilities, including timer libraries,
memory pool manager, packet buffer
manager, locks, multicore hash table and
statistics-gathering support.
Key Features
• Multicore layer abstraction to allow core
to core application scalability by hiding
the number of cores and intelligently
mapping the application flows to
execution threads
• Provides a consistent interface across
the QorIQ product families to fill hardware
gaps and hide hardware differences
• Hardware driver support in Linux user
space: Ethernet, SEC and PME engines
• Full DPAA offload for applications
running in Linux user space. VortiQa PSP
leverages hardware acceleration facilities,
such as checksum verification/generation
and packet distribution.
For more information, visit freescale.com/VortiQa
• Provides network services such as
interface database, routing database,
ARP database, bridging and forwarding
• Data plane route module is synchronized
with control plane routing table, allowing
route lookups required for the packet
traversals
• Provides stateful session management
in the data plane, including creating,
deleting sessions and optimizing a lockfree
session table lookup
• Provides communication mechanisms
between control plane and data plane for
packets and inter-module messaging for
short and bulk messages
• Provides support for IPv4 and IPv6
protocols
• Statistics support
• Memory management
• Provides a large number of well-defined
timer APIs consisting of a mix of
hardware with minimum software that
leverage the queue manager and DPAA
buffer manager
Pricing and Availability
Please contact your local Freescale sales
representative for business models and
availability.
Freescale, the Freescale logo and QorIQ are trademarks of Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Reg. U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. VortiQa is
a trademark of Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. All other product or service names are the property of their respective owners.
© 2012 Freescale Semiconductor, Inc.
Document Number: VRTQAPSPA4FS REV 0