An efficient implementation architecture for layered communication systems

This paper proposes and analyses an efficient implementation architecture well suited to layered communication systems. High throughput is achieved by the design of specific layer interfaces and data structures, specialized mechanisms of memory management, timer management and task scheduling. Performance measurements were accomplished considering a complete OSI protocol stack. The obtained results show a throughput efficiency that attains 6 Mbit/s for a MAC layer user and 2.5 Mbit/s for a presentation layer user in a remote communication. 43 Mbit/s throughput for the MAC layer user is achieved in a loopback configuration. The most important bottlenecks are analysed and consist of the transport checksum, acknowledgment step frequency, data copy, memory management and task scheduling.