Wireshark in a Multi-Core Environment Using Hardware Acceleration

Line Speed Capturing ReviewNapatech Adapter Feature Benefit Standard Network AdaptersFrame burst buffering onadapterLong PCI burstsLarge host buffersOS bypass, zero copy ofcaptured packets directly touser application memoryNo data is lost, even when captured databursts exceed the PCI interface speed, orthe PCI interface is temporarily blocked.For NT20X 2 x 10 Gbps can be handleddown to 150 bytes frames.For NT20X 1 x 10 Gbps can be handled atany frame size.Data is lost, when captured burstsexceed the PCI interface speed, or thePCI interface is temporarily blocked.Very high PCI performance can be achieved The PCI performance will depend on thefor all frame sizes. frame size. E.g. the overhead for a 64-byte frame can be as much as 45%,while for a 1-KB frame it will be only 5%.Data can be processed at much higherspeed, and the frame processing overheadis much lower (releasing processing powerto the user application).There is no packet copying or OS handlingoverhead.Merging of streams Adapters can merge packets received on 2or more ports in reception time order,whereby the host CPU is off-loaded.Frames are handled one at a time givinga large processing overhead resulting inlower user application speed.A standard OS packet handling interfaceperforms one or more copy of all framesresulting in lower application speed.The sorting of frames in time order mustby done by the host CPU, reducing thepossible host processing performance.16