Dual Processor Performance Characterization for XML Application-Oriented Networking

There is a growing trend to insert application intelligence into network devices. Processors in this type of Application-Oriented Networking (AON) devices are required to handle both packet-level network I/O intensive operations as well as XML message-level CPU intensive operations. In this paper, we investigate performance effect of dual processing via (1) Hyperthreading, (2) uni-processor to dual-processor, and (3) single-core to dual-core, on both packet-level and XML message-level traffic. We analyze and cross-examine the dual processing effect from both high-level performance as well as processor microarchitectural perspectives. We employ on-chip performance counters to measure cycles per instruction, cache misses, bus utilization, and branch miss predictions for this work. Our results show a significant improvement in dual-core Pentium M processor over Hyperthreaded Xeon processor for AON workload These results will not only provide insight to processor designers, but also help architects of A ON devices to select from alternative processors with restrictions to use one or two physical CPUs due to space and power consumption limitations.