7th International Conference on Communications and Networking in China

Research Article

Parallelizing Sequential Network Applications with Customized Lock-Free Data Structures

  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/ChinaCom.2012.6417441,
        author={Junchang Wang and Kai Zhang and Bei Hua},
        title={Parallelizing Sequential Network Applications with Customized Lock-Free Data Structures},
        proceedings={7th International Conference on Communications and Networking in China},
        publisher={IEEE},
        proceedings_a={CHINACOM},
        year={2012},
        month={9},
        keywords={parallel network applications customized  lock-free data structure concurrent programming},
        doi={10.1109/ChinaCom.2012.6417441}
    }
    
  • Junchang Wang
    Kai Zhang
    Bei Hua
    Year: 2012
    Parallelizing Sequential Network Applications with Customized Lock-Free Data Structures
    CHINACOM
    IEEE
    DOI: 10.1109/ChinaCom.2012.6417441
Junchang Wang1, Kai Zhang1, Bei Hua1,*
  • 1: University of Science and Technology of China
*Contact email: bhua@ustc.edu.cn

Abstract

Parallelizing fine-grained network applications on general-purpose multi-core architectures is a big challenge, as it requires fast core-to-core synchronization that is not supported for now. This paper proposes a methodology for parallelizing legacy sequential network applications on multi-core architectures with only minor code rewriting. Single Program Multiple Data (SPMD) parallel programming style is used to retain the control flow of sequential code, and then data structures potentially involving data racing are replaced with customized lock-free data structures based on domain knowledge. We evaluate the methodology by parallelizing a sequential TCP SYN flood detection program on Intel Quad processors, and gain inspiring results.