DPDK-Style Poll-Mode Processing
Poll-mode networking dedicates CPU capacity to repeatedly draining NIC queues, usually with preallocated packet buffers and batched processing.
Planned model
Animate receive descriptors, packet-buffer pools, bursts, worker ownership, transmission, and reclamation. Expose empty polls and queue backlogs.
Questions
- Why are huge pages and pinned cores commonly involved?
- How are packet buffers recycled without allocation?
- How should work be divided without reintroducing shared contention?
Exercise
Design a two-stage poll-mode pipeline and account for queue ownership, buffer ownership, and overload behavior.