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5. Data Plane Development Kit
The DPDK is a set of libraries and drivers for fast packet processing and runs mostly in Linux userland. It is a set of libraries that provide the so called "Environment Abstraction Layer" (EAL). The EAL hides the details of the environment and provides a standard programming interface. Common use cases are around special solutions for instance network function virtualization and advanced high-throughput network switching. The DPDK uses a run-to-completion model for fast data plane performance and accesses devices via polling to eliminate the latency of interrupt processing at the tradeoff of higher cpu consumption. It was designed to run on any processors. The first supported CPU was Intel x86 and it is now extended to IBM Power 8, EZchip TILE-Gx and ARM.
Ubuntu currently supports DPDK version 2.2 and provides some infrastructure to ease its usability.