What is NetDMA?

The NetDMA term was coined by the networking team to imply a DMA (Direct Memory Access) engine that is used for moving networking data in memory. During WinHEC I will present the NetDMA architecture but for now I will give you the problem that NetDMA is trying to address.

When the networking card receives data from the wire, it performs a DMA transfer to copy it into system memory. It then informs the networking stack that a certain number of received packets are ready for processing, most commonly by raising an interrupt. When the networking stack processes the packets, it copies the data into buffers posted by the application waiting for it. This second copy operation is performed by the CPU, which means that receive processing can be a CPU-intensive task. NetDMA tries to address the following question: how can we reduce CPU utilization when doing the second copy?

Besides presenting the NetDMA architecture, I will present (in another talk) the networking test tools that are integrated in the Windows Driver Kit. This will be a great opportunity to see how network devices will be tested for the “Designed for Windows Vista” logo program, to ask questions, and to provide us with feedback.

There is something for everyone, so come and join us at WinHEC 2006 in Seattle.

Rade Trimceski

Program Manager