Design flow industry standard flow verilog simulation synthesis downloadaug

Teaching tools for a network infrastructure teaching lab The Virtual Router and NetFPGA

Sigcomm Education Workshop
August 20th, 2002





		Sigcomm Education Workshop	1

Why have a network infrastructure teaching lab

 Many of our students go to networking companies: Software engineers implement network protocols, and
 Hardware engineers architect and design switches and routers.  More likely to design a router than a computer.

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Platform #1: Hardware Platform NetFPGA

 Canonical assignment: Ethernet switch
 Other assignments: IP router, firewall, packet mis-sequencer, data transcoder, …
 Design flow: Industry standard flow
 Verilog -> simulation/verification -> synthesis -> download

Aug 20th, 2002			5

		Packet buffers		1
				1
			Interface #1
				2


	Ethernet
	Program FPGA via			8



		User program	Interface #8
		User program	Controller
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Firewall

Ethernet

		Controller
	Interface #2
FPGA
User memory
User memory
Aug 20th, 2002		Sigcomm Education Workshop	7

 First classroom use: April 2003

 Boards available: Early 2004

Aug 20th, 2002		Sigcomm Education Workshop	9

 Other assignments: QoS router, lookup algorithms, routing protocols, Firewall, …


1. Packet arrives destined	route it to correct interface.
for web server ‘C’.

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Example assignment

March 2002, ~100 BS/MS students

Software Platform: Virtual Router VR The Virtual Router Server
Client

Instructional
machines
PC
Linux

Campus Network


locally unique Ethernet
and IP address.
VR	VR	VR
VR	Client	Client
Client	VR
Client			Client

	Client
	Client

Web/ftp servers

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Firewall/
Load-balancer

“Virtual Router Server”

 Prototype V1.0: Summer 2001
 First classroom use: March 2002
 CS244a at Stanford, Assignment #3, ~100 students V2.0: Summer 2002
 Next classroom use: March 2003
 First planned release: Summer 2003

 Looking for sponsors and alpha-users…

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