Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Packet processing
Summary
In digital communications networks, packet processing refers to the wide variety of algorithms that are applied to a packet of data or information as it moves through the various network elements of a communications network. With the increased performance of network interfaces, there is a corresponding need for faster packet processing.
There are two broad classes of packet processing algorithms that align with the standardized network subdivision of control plane and data plane. The algorithms are applied to either:
Control information contained in a packet which is used to transfer the packet safely and efficiently from origin to destination
or
The data content (frequently called the payload) of the packet which is used to provide some content-specific transformation or take a content-driven action.
Within any network enabled device (e.g. router, switch, network element or terminal such as a computer or smartphone) it is the packet processing subsystem that manages the traversal of the multi-layered network or protocol stack from the lower, physical and network layers all the way through to the application layer.
The history of packet processing is the history of the Internet and packet switching. Packet processing milestones include:
1962–1968: Early research into packet switching
1969: 1st two nodes of ARPANET connected; 15 sites connected by end of 1971 with email as a new application
1973: Packet switched voice connections over ARPANET with Network Voice Protocol. (FTP) specified
1974: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) specified
1979: VoIP – NVP running on early versions of IP
1981: IP and TCP standardized
1982: TCP/IP standardized
1991: World Wide Web (WWW) released by CERN, authored by Tim Berners-Lee
1998: IPv6 first published
Historical references and timeline can be found in the External Resources section below.
For networks to succeed it is necessary to have a unifying standard for which defines the architecture of networking systems.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.