Implementation and Evaluation of a Prototype Reconfigurable Router

The evolution of computer networking technology will likely require hardware that is flexible enough to adapt to changing standards while maintaining the highest possible performance. Much research has recently been done in active networks, which increase network flexibility by allowing the routers to be reprogrammed, often at the cost of lower throughput. A reconfigurable router implemented on a Custom Computing Machine (CCM) can provide the flexibility required for active networking while approaching the high throughput of inflexible application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC)-based routers. This paper presents an implementation of a prototype reconfigurable router on the Wildforce platform. The prototype implements IPv4 routing with a throughput of up to 576 Mbps, using a stream-based approach that facilitates dynamic