Speculative prefetch of protocol control information from an external memory unit

A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that when executed by a machine result in the following:

• speculating, based on a receive packet, a connection that will subsequently have a send packet to be processed in accordance with a protocol,
• dynamically calculating a time when protocol control information, associated with the speculated connection, is to be pre-fetched from an external memory unit, wherein the time is calculated in accordance with an estimated processing time associated with the receive packet and an estimated latency time associated with pre-fetching the protocol control information from the external memory unit, and
• arranging, in accordance with the dynamically calculated time, for a processing engine to pre-fetch from the external memory unit the protocol control information associated with the connection.

A computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon instructions that when executed by a machine result in the following:

• speculating, based on a send packet, a connection that will subsequently have a receive packet to be processed in accordance with a protocol,
• dynamically calculating a time when protocol control information, associated with the speculated connection, is to be pre-fetched from an external memory unit, wherein the time is calculated in accordance with an estimated processing time associated with the send packet and an estimated latency time associated with pre-fetching the protocol control information from the external memory unit, and
• in accordance with the dynamically calculated time, a processing engine pre-fetching from the external memory unit the protocol control information associated with the connection.