From da59fe8f3511befe178bb96adcdad332e2a5d08e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Alex Williams Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2019 14:53:07 -0800 Subject: docs: Add information about what dpdk_zero_copy is doing This adds some info about what is happening in the dpdk_zero_copy transport, especially the fact that there are threads spun off that take over CPUs. --- host/docs/dpdk.dox | 11 +++++++++-- 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) (limited to 'host/docs') diff --git a/host/docs/dpdk.dox b/host/docs/dpdk.dox index 9359a22cd..564cfeaf6 100644 --- a/host/docs/dpdk.dox +++ b/host/docs/dpdk.dox @@ -6,8 +6,15 @@ Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) is a set of libraries that allows network interface controller (NIC) drivers to use user space memory buffers to send and -receive data over a network. This allows us to eliminate context switching in -UHD's transport layer, which enables us to stream higher sample rates. +receive data over a network. These libraries underpin one of the network +transport options in UHD. + +In UHD, the DPDK-based transport will fork off I/O threads that implement the +network services, and these I/O threads will service the NICs on cores provided +in your configuration. The cores will be completely consumed by the I/O thread. +Together with DPDK's polling-mode drivers, this virtually eliminates context +switching in UHD's transport layer, which enables us to stream higher sample +rates. \section dpdk_setup DPDK Setup -- cgit v1.2.3