Harnessing Programmable SoCs to develop cost-effective network quality monitoring devices
Mario Ruiz, Javier Ramos, Gustavo D. Sutter, Sergio López-Buedo, Jorge E. López de Vergara, Cristian Sisterna · 2016
Networks are currently essential for computing: It is therefore essential to guarantee the quality of network links in order to ensure a proper operation of computing systems. However, a widespread deployment of network monitoring devices might not be economically feasible. In this paper, we propose the use of Programmable System-on-Chip FPGAs (PSoCs) for enabling a comprehensive testing of networks. Software-only solutions are no longer valid, because the timescales of current networks call for custom-hardware solutions. Thus, we show that PSoCs are a perfect fit for network quality monitoring devices, by mapping the required measurements to the capabilities of such devices. In order to demonstrate the benefits of PSoCs to monitor the quality of network links, we have developed a prototype based on Xilinx Zynq that is capable of measuring the key performance indicators of Gigabit Ethernet networks, namely: available bandwidth, packet loss, delay and jitter. The monitoring probe features GPS-based timestamping, thus enabling the construction of network delay maps. We present the benefits of the proposed approach in terms of cost and simplicity, and we also show how it could be expanded to multi-Gb/s networks.