Kernel bypassing networking

Here is a selection of the many kernel-bypass solutions that are available:

• ntop.org DNA.
• netmap.
• Intel DPDK.
• Myricom Sniffer10G and DBL.
• 6WINDGate.
• SolarFlare OpenOnload.
• Napatech.

These products each take their own design approaches and it’s interesting to consider choices that they make.

• Customized kernel device driver. netmap and DNA both fork standard Intel drivers with extensions to map I/O memory into userspace.
• Custom hardware. Myricom and Napatech both distribute bespoke device drivers for their own custom hardware (ASIC for Myricom and FPGA for Napatech).
• Userspace library. These solutions each provide unique libraries to access their extensions. The scope varies tremendously: Ethernet I/O, libpcap compatibility, hardware-assisted traffic dispatching for multiprocessing, buffer memory management, all the way up to entire TCP/IP socket layers.
• Licensing. netmap is open-source, DNA requires a modest license for its userspace library, Napatech requires an NDA and depends on very expensive hardware.

Source: http://lukego.github.io/blog/2013/01/04/kernel-bypass-networking/