FlexPath NP - A network processor architecture with flexible processing paths

In this paper we present a FlexPath network processor implementation, a platform with flexible, reconfigurable processing paths for packet processing. The path decision is made in hardware based on a packetpsilas network application. Packets may be processed by a CPU or even completely in hardware. With our demonstrator the performance of different processing paths is shown for a scenario with simple IPv4 forwarding traffic mixed with IPSec packets. We show that flexible path selection significantly improves the systempsilas performance. The specific FlexPath concepts are also applicable to other NP architectures.