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From: Stephen Hemminger <stephen@networkplumber.org>
To: Helin Zhang <helin.zhang@intel.com>,
	Thomas Monjalon <thomas.monjalon@6wind.com>
Cc: dev@dpdk.org
Subject: [dpdk-dev] DPDK and HW offloads
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 10:16:11 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20160318101611.2df26ef6@xeon-e3> (raw)

As I look at how the ethernet device interface in DPDK has exploded in complexity;
it makes life very hard for end users.  The goal has been to enable all the cool hardware
features, but it has put blinders on the driver devlopers; they are ignoring the fact
that real applications can't just work on one kind of hardware.

The DPDK is doing a terrible job at providing abstractions.  There needs to be a
real generic set of operations, and every hardware offload feature must:
  * have a clear well defined API
  * if feature is not available in software, then the DPDK must provide
    a software equivalent feature.
  * any difference in API must be hidden from application.
  * no compile config options about offload.
  * tests and documentation must work for both hw and sw version

Right now, all those offload features are pretty much unusable in a real product
without lots and lots of extra codes and huge bug surface. It bothers me enough
that I would recommend removing much of the filter/offload/ptype stuff from DPDK!

             reply	other threads:[~2016-03-18 17:16 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 12+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2016-03-18 17:16 Stephen Hemminger [this message]
2016-03-18 18:00 ` Thomas Monjalon
2016-03-20 14:17   ` Zhang, Helin
2016-03-20 19:18     ` Thomas Monjalon
2016-03-21 14:52       ` Bruce Richardson
2016-03-21 15:26         ` Kyle Larose
2016-03-22  5:50           ` Qiu, Michael
2016-03-22 10:19             ` Bruce Richardson
2016-03-22 12:19               ` Jay Rolette
2016-03-22 17:17                 ` Stephen Hemminger
2016-03-22 17:41                   ` Jerin Jacob
2016-03-23  2:47               ` Qiu, Michael

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