Mechanism for achieving ultra-low latency packet processing at CU-UP
In one embodiment, a method is disclosed, comprising: receiving a packet; processing the packet in a Control Unit-User Plane (CU-UP) as a user-space application with kernel-bypass networking; performing packet Input/Output (I/O) by the CU-UP user-space application, wherein the CU-UP performs Internet Protocol (IP) validation on received user-plane packets before processing Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP), Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP) and General Packet Radio Service Tunnelling Protocol (GTPU) protocol stack and performing direct I/O to a Network Interface Controller (NIC) for sending the packet over a network to a Distributed Unit (DU). The method may further comprise using a containerized CU-UP. The method may further comprise using a plurality of worker threads. The method may further comprise using a polling user space networking accelerator framework.
1 . A method, comprising:
receiving a packet at a network processing stack, the packet being a Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) packet carrying User Equipment (UE) user plane data, the network processing stack having a kernel driver and a userspace driver;
passing the packet to a Control Unit-User Plane (CU-UP) as a user space application with kernel-bypass networking;
performing packet Input/Output (I/O) by the CU-UP user-space application, wherein the CU-UP performs Internet Protocol (IP) validation on received user-plane packets before processing Packet Data Convergence Protocol (PDCP), Service Data Adaptation Protocol (SDAP) and General Packet Radio Service Tunnelling Protocol (GTPU) protocol stack; and
performing, via the userspace driver of the network processing stack, direct I/O to the Network Interface Controller (NIC) for sending the packet over an F1-U interface to a Distributed Unit (DU) at a cellular base station,
wherein the userspace driver is in a same container as the CU-UP.
2 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising using a containerized CU-UP.
3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising using a plurality of worker threads.
4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising using a polling user space networking accelerator framework.