A modular, flexible hardware network stack for direct- attached accelerators

Abstract

Accelerators have become increasingly popular in datacenters due to their energy and performance benefits. Direct-attached accelerators, where the network stack is implemented in hardware and network traffic bypasses the CPU, can further enhance these benefits. However, interoperating with modern systems deployed in datacenters requires a number of customized network functions and protocols provided in software network stacks. Hardware network stacks currently do not support this type of functionality and are difficult to extend due to their fixed processing pipelines. We propose Beehive, a network-on-chip based network stack for directattached accelerators designed to enable flexible construction of complex hardware network stacks. We leverage the NoC-based architecture to flexibly stream network traffic through protocols and services for processing as well as provide scalable application and control plane interfaces.