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Analysis of protocol layer residency in the host-NIU system of a network node
Ajit S. Bapat, Serugudi V. Raghavan
Published in
1993
Volume: 39

Issue: 3
Pages: 165 - 178
Abstract
A general host-NIU pair, and various issues related to partitioning of a protocol software between the host machine and the intelligent Network Interface Unit (NIU) are discussed. A methodology to arrive at Optimal Protocol Partition, in a typical network node executing arbitrary protocol software is given. Analytical model is suggested to estimate the performance of the partitioned protocol stack, in a host-NIU pair. The implementation work carried out at IIT Madras, to understand the partitioning of the OSI protocol layers is described. OSInet, a networking software implementing a carefully chosen subset of ISO-OSI model for LANs, was used for this work. Significant improvement in the throughput of a network node was measured, due to proper partitioning of protocol software between a host machine and an intelligent NIU.