Design of a Flexible Open Platform for High Performance Active Networks

This paper describes an architecture for a high performance active router. The system is designed as an open research platform, with a range of configuration options and possibilities for extension in both the software and hardware dimensions. The system is built around a scalable switch fabric and includes a general-purpose processor subsystem at each port, enabling flexible packet processing and deployment of flow-specific active plugins. Such a research platform is becoming an indispensable tool for effective systems research in networking and distributed systems.