Using XML for efficient and modular packet processing

XML is a technology that has been widely adopted for data exchange, particularly in Web and e-commerce applications. This paper proposes the use of XML also for network packet processing. It presents some XML-based languages for data exchange and it identifies some examples in which XML can enable a new, modular design of network applications while maintaining the required high processing efficiency. These technologies have been implemented in the NetBee library, which provides an excellent way to give an insight of the performance obtainable with the proposed approach.