Abstract
Streamed multimedia is becoming common on the Internet as the
bandwidths increase for end-users. To stream data with high
bitrates to many concurrent users, servers are needed that can handle
these extreme loads. Implementing servers in clusters to be able to meet
demands has proved to be a good strategy, providing scalability and performance. One commercial actor that has done this
successfully is nCube. Their n4x solution is a server
cluster based on a hypercube interconnection topology, and their
reported server performance is promising. However, the use of
special hardware for offloading routing increases the cost for
deploying this system. Network processing units have many similar
properties to the special hardware used by nCube. They are fully
programmable and optimized for networking tasks. In this thesis, we
start by charting the functionality and capabilities of the IXP2400 network
processor by implementing a series of test applications. Using
knowledge gained from this exploration, the design and implementation
of a video server hypercube prototype is done. We present an evaluation of the IXP2400 hardware
platform based on the test applications. Our video server cube
prototype is also presented and evaluated.