CHAPTER 9 NP Peripherals

Most of this part of the book has described packet processing algorithms and functions as well as network processors (hardware and software). Implementing network processors in network systems, however, requires several additional components, which we call network processors’ (NPs) peripherals. Some are for adjunct processing (e.g., security functions), some are used for higher-level processing (e.g., control plane processing), some are for data storage (e.g., memories), and some are used for interconnecting all of the network system’s components (of which the network processor is only one).

In this chapter, we describe the two important categories of network processors’ peripherals that are unique to networking: switch ...

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