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Elsevier Inc. | ISBN 978-0-12-370891-5 | ENGLISH | PDF | 737 PAGES | 10.34 MB

Introduction
Network processors (NPs) are chips—programmable devices that can process network packets (up to hundreds of millions of them per second), at wire-speeds of multi-Gbps. Their ability to perform complex and fl exible processing on each packet, as well as the fact that they can be programmed and reprogrammed as required, make them a perfect and easy solution for network systems vendors developing packet processing equipment.
Network processors are about a decade old now and they have become a fundamental and critical component in many high-end network systems and demanding network processing environments.
This chapter introduces this relatively new processing paradigm, and provide a high-level perspective of what NPs are, where to use them and why, and conclude with a brief description of the contents of the rest of the book.

NETWORK PROCESSORS ECOSYSTEM
Telecommunications and data networks have become essential to everything that we do, to our well-being and to all of our requirements. The prevalence of Internet technology, cable TV (CATV), broadcasting, as well as fi xed and cellular telephony, tie many and expanding services to a very large population that is growing exponentially. The increasing speed of the communication links has triggered a wide range of high-speed networks, followed by an increasingly broad spectrum of services and applications.
We are witnessing this dramatic growth in communication networks and services; just think of the changes that networks and services have undergone in the past 10 years in the areas of , video, Internet, information availability, TV, automation, multimedia, entertainment, services, shopping, and multiplayer games. You can safely assume that an equivalent jump in technology and services will happen again in the next 5 years or so.

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