Technologies for coordinating access to data packets in a memory

One or more non-transitory machine-readable storage media comprising a plurality of instructions stored thereon that in response to being executed, cause a network device to:

• establish a shared ring in a memory of the network device, wherein the shared ring includes a plurality of slots;
• allocate at least one core of a plurality of cores of one or more processors of the network device, to each of a plurality of stages, the plurality of stages including an input stage, an output stage, and a worker stage, wherein the worker stage is to process data in a packet with an associated worker function;
• add, with the input stage, an entry to a slot in the shared ring representative of a packet received with a network interface controller of the network device, wherein the entry includes metadata indicative that the packet is ready to be operated on by a worker stage, the plurality of stages can concurrently access a same entry in the shared ring, the metadata stored in association with each entry in the shared ring provides status information to the plurality of stages to prevent one stage from modifying the packet before another stage has completed operations on the packet;
• determine, with the worker stage, from the metadata included in the entry and by reading, from the memory with the worker stage, a sequence number of the input stage, indicative of an index of a present entry in the shared ring that the input stage is operating on, whether the packet is ready to be operated on by the worker stage;
• access, with the worker stage and in response to a determination that the metadata included in the entry and the sequence number of the input stage indicates that the entry in the shared ring is ready to be operated on, to process at least a portion of the packet;
• and
• provide, with the output stage, the processed packet to the network interface controller for transmission.

A network device to process packets, the network device comprising:

• circuitry for establishing a shared ring in a memory of the network device, wherein the shared ring includes a plurality of slots;
• circuitry for allocating at least one core of a plurality of cores of one or more processors of the network device, to each of a plurality of stages, the plurality of stages including an input stage, an output stage, and a worker stage, wherein the worker stage is to process data in a packet with an associated worker function;
• circuitry for adding, with the input stage, an entry to a slot in the shared ring representative of a packet received with a network interface controller of the network device, wherein the entry includes metadata indicative that the packet is ready to be operated on by a worker stage, the plurality of stages can concurrently access a same entry in the shared ring, the metadata stored in association with each entry in the shared ring provides status information to the plurality of stages to prevent one stage from modifying the packet before another stage has completed operations on the packet;
• circuitry for determining, with the worker stage, from the metadata included in the entry and by reading, from memory with the worker stage, a sequence number of the input stage, indicative of a present index in the shared ring that the input stage is operating on, whether the packet is ready to be operated on by the worker stage;
• circuitry for accessing, with the worker stage and in response to a determination that the metadata included in the entry and the sequence number of the input stage indicates that the entry is ready to be operated on, the entry in the shared ring to process at least a portion of the packet;
• and
• network communication circuitry for providing, with the output stage, the processed packet to the network interface controller for transmission.

A method for processing packets, comprising:

• establishing, by a network device, a shared ring in a memory of the network device, wherein the shared ring includes a plurality of slots;
• allocating, by the network device, at least one core of a plurality of cores of one or more processors of the network device, to each of a plurality of stages, the plurality of stages including an input stage, an output stage, and a worker stage, wherein the worker stage is to process data in a packet with an associated worker function;
• adding, with the input stage, an entry to a slot in the shared ring representative of a packet received with a network interface controller of the network device, wherein the entry includes metadata indicative that the packet is ready to be operated on by a worker stage, the plurality of stages can concurrently access a same entry in the shared ring, the metadata stored in association with each entry in the shared ring provides status information to the plurality of stages to prevent one stage from modifying the packet before another stage has completed operations on the packet;
• determining, from the metadata included in the entry and by reading, from memory with the worker stage, a sequence number of the input stage, indicative of a present index in the shared ring that the input stage is operating on, whether the packet is ready to be operated on by the worker stage;
• accessing, with the worker stage and in response to a determination that the metadata included in the entry and the sequence number of the input stage indicates that the entry is ready to be operated on, the entry in the shared ring to process at least a portion of the packet;
• and
• providing, with the output stage, the processed packet to the network interface controller for transmission.