Different network devices require processing of the network traffic. To process the network traffic, it is necessary to parse headers of particular protocols packed in incoming ethernet frames. The processed headers can be repackaged to ethernet frames and sent back to the network. The goal of this thesis is to design and implement a circuit for analysis and parsing of ethernet frames, together with circuit for deparsing ethernet frames. The circuits are designed for throughputs of up to 400 Gb/s. The circuits are implemented for the FPGA technology.

No description available.

Thesis (M. Comm,)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, 2001. / Electronic commerce is a new technology, which is growing rapidly and has the ability to create a truly global digital economy. The extraordinary growth of the internet in the last few years has led to the birth of a world without borders, a place where free communication, a competitive market and extensive comparison shopping are a matter of course. This apparent lack of geography in cyberspace has raised complex problems regarding government tax policy. The rapid rise in sales over the internet and the fact that most internet buyers pay no income tax on transactions has ignited a considerable debate over taxes and the internet. The nature of the internet and the globalisation of the world economy mean that developments in e-commerce create legal problems concerning security of transactions and legal jurisdiction of transactions. There is a general concern that e-commerce provides taxpayers with the ability to move transactions outside a country's jurisdiction and thus avoid paying tax in that taxing jurisdiction. The advent of ecommerce has also given dishonest taxpayers the ability to structure their affairs to reduce or avoid paying tax in their jurisdictions. Rules written specifically to address the unique characteristics of electronic commerce are few and must be creatively adapted to the unique needs of e-commerce. As the volume of e-commerce increases, however, so will the number of rules. Many government committees and commissions devoted wholly or partly to make proposals and write the rules for e-commerce, exist throughout the world. In the United States the highest profile commission is the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce. This commission has a mandate to recommend far-reaching changes to the taxation of electronic commerce, especially in the areas of sales and value-added tax ('Vat') and cross-border taxation. Research conducted by Austan Goolsbee has shown that applying the conventional tax policy to the internet commerce will reduce the number of buyers on the internet by up to 24 percent. Various countries are currently formulating their respective regulatory policies in an attempt to find solutions to problems posed by e-commerce.

Den här studien behandlar fenomenet sociala medier med inriktning på att öka trafik till detaljhandelns webbaserade sidor för att skapa relationer, bygga varumärke och öka försäljning.Idag står företag inför en ny utmaning när det gäller marknadsföring. På några få år har internethandeln exploderat och med det företagens sätt att marknadsföra sig virtuellt. Sedan början av 2000-talet har en ny kanal för att sända ut marknadsföringsmässiga budskap till kunderna uppstått, de sociala medierna. Ett exempel på en av dessa är Facebook vars användarantal bara stiger år för år och i dagsläget har fler än 6 av 10 svenskar en personprofil på Facebook.Varje kanal för kommunikation har sina egenskaper och med det givna referensramar för företagen att arbeta med och skapa verktyg för. Då sociala medier fortfarande är ett ganska nytt fenomen anser vi att problematiken ligger i att många företag inte har hittat det ultimata användningssättet för kanalen. Exempelvis finns många företag representerade på Facebook, men att bara ha en profil gör varken till eller från om de inte fyller sitt budskap till kunderna med innehåll. De måste vara aktiva med sitt sociala företagande för att kunna nå fram i bruset.Med den nya tekniken uppstår både möjligheter och komplikationer i hur företagen bättre kan skapa en relation till sina kunder. Klassiska modeller som kommunikationsmodellen, relationsmarknadsföring och word of mouth är fungerande teorier för det nya fältet då det grundar sig på ett uråldrigt fenomen – kommunikation. Tillsammans bildar de här tre teorierna vår teoretiska referensram.En social media kännetecknas av sin förmåga att skapa interaktiv kommunikation. Förr sände företagen ut ett budskap till en tänkt målgrupp och hoppades att den skulle nå fram och tolkas rätt genom bruset på vägen. Idag erbjuds en tvåvägskommunikation där kunderna har möjlighet att sända sin feedback tillbaka till företagen. Via internetanvändarnas på klick skapas en trafik som är mätbar för hur framgångsrik till exempel en kampanj är för ett företag. Den här studien utreder de vanligast förekommande begreppen inom internettrafik för att underlätta förståelsen av fältet.Via empiriska data som behandlar några av de största sociala plattformarna i samhället idag: Facebook, bloggar och Twitter, belyser vi fältet ur användarens såväl som företagets perspektiv. Informationen är hämtad ur adekvat litteratur i ämnet samt akademiskt granskade artiklar. För att få en större tyngd i studien har vi genomfört kvalitativa intervjuer med människor som har erfarenhet från branschen.Slutsatsen vi har dragit från vår studie är att om företagen ska använda sig av sociala medier är det viktigt att ha i åtanke att den här kanalen inte skiljer såg från andra, då det gäller att nå fram med sitt budskap. Myten om att sociala medier utgör en gratis kommunikationskanal stämmer inte, då ett välgjort budskap endast kan uppnås då det ligger tid och energi bakom från företagens sida. För få spridning på budskapet och uppnå word of mouth måste företagen erbjuda användarna något som inspirerar dem att sprida informationen vidare.This study deals with the phenomenon social media with an emphasis on the increased web traffic to retail trade companies’ web pages to better create relationships to their customers, add value to their brands and enhance their sales numbers.Today’s companies are fronting a new marketing challenge. In a few years the online commerce has exploded and with it the companies’ strategies to market themselves virtually. Since the beginning of the early 21st century a new channel has arisen for advertising messages; the social media. An example of such media is the social networking page Facebook whose number of users is increasing day by day. Today 6 out of 10 Swedes have a Facebook profile of their own.Each channel for communication implies a capacity of its own in the terms of marketing tools for companies to use. Social media is however a new communication tool for many companies and the complex of problems is that they have not properly learnt how to use it. A lot of companies are represented on Facebook commercially; only the bare existing on Facebook does not contribute to the company’s development, if they do not fill their messages with meaning and content. To be able to reach their customers companies have to work actively to promote them selves through the social media channel.The new technology carries both possibilities and complications for the companies to enhance their relationship to their customers. Classic models of theory such as the communication model, relationship marketing and word of mouth are still useful to the new field of study because it is based on an ancient phenomenon – communication. Together these three theories constitute our frame of reference.A social media is described by its ability to create interactive communication. Not long ago the companies would send out their advertising message through traditional marketing channels hoping that their message would be received and understood by their group of interest through the noise. Today’s social media model offers an interactive communication that facilitates the receiving of feedback from customers. Through the business model of Internet traffic, which measures customers’ clicks and thereby their interest, the success of a social media campaign is perceived. This study investigates how the most common traffic business models are used on the Internet to better fill the reader in on the field of study.The empirical data discusses some of the most used social networking sites worldwide today. The social media platforms described, both through the eyes of the Internet user and the company, are: Facebook, Twitter and blogs. The information presented in the study has its origin from peer reviewed articles and adequate literature. To better establish the understanding of the field of study the authors have accomplished qualitative interviews with people from the line of business.Our conclusion drawn from the study is that if companies wish to present themselves on social media they have to commit to the new way of marketing that this channel of communication offers. The myth of social media being practically a free marketing channel is eliminated by the fact that success in any communication channel depends on effort, energy, time and money. To create word of mouth companies have to offer the user of social media something that inspires them and that creates something they wish to share. / Program: Textilekonomutbildningen

With the constant growth of internet applications, such as social networks, online media, various online communities, and mobile applications, website user traffic has grown, is very dynamic, and is oftentimes unpredictable. These unpredictable natures of the traffic have led to many new and unique challenges which must be addressed by solution architects, application developers, and technology researchers. All of these actors must continually innovate to create new attractive application and new system architectures to support the users of these new applications. In addition, increased traffic increases the demands for resources, while users demand even faster response times, despite the ever-growing datasets underlying many of these new applications. Several concepts and best practices have been introduced to build highly scalable applications by exploiting cloud computing. As no one who expect to be or remain a leader in business today can afford to ignore cloud computing. Cloud computing has emerged as a platform upon which innovation, flexibility, availability, and faster time-to-market can be supported by new small and medium sized enterprises. Cloud computing is enabling these businesses to create massively scalable applications, some of which handle tens of millions of active users daily. This thesis concerns the design, implementation, demonstration, and evaluation of a highly scalable cloud based architectures designed for high performance and rapid evolution for new businesses, such as Ifoodbag AB, in order to meet the requirement for their web based application. This thesis examines how to scale resources both up and down dynamically, since there is no reason to allocate more or less resources than actually needed. Apart from implementing and testing the proposed design, this thesis presents several guidelines, best practices and recommendations for optimizing auto scaling process including cost analysis. Test results and analysis presented in this thesis, clearly shows the proposed architecture model is strongly capable of supporting high demand applications, provides greater flexibility and enables rapid market share growth for new businesses, without their need to investing in an expensive infrastructure. / Med den ständiga tillväxten av Internet- applikationer, såsom sociala nätverk, online media, olika communities och mobila applikationer, har trafiken mot webbplatser ökat samt blivit mycket mer dynamisk och är ofta oförutsägbara. Denna oförutsägbara natur av trafiken har lett till många nya och unika utmaningar som måste lösas med hjälp av lösningsarkitekter, applikationsutvecklare och teknikforskare. Alla dessa aktörer måste ständigt förnya sig för att skapa nya attraktiva program och nya systemarkitekturer för att stödja användarna av dessa nya tillämpningar. Dessutom ökar den ökade trafikmängden krav på resurser, samtidigt som användarna kräver ännu snabbare svarstider, trots den ständigt växande datamängden som ligger som grund för många av dessa nya tillämpningar . Flera koncept och branchstandarder har införts för att bygga skalbara applikationer genom att utnyttja ”molnet” (”cloud computing”), eftersom att ingen som förväntar sig att bli eller förbli en ledare i näringslivet idag har råd att ignorera ”molnet”. Cloud computing har vuxit fram som en plattform på vilken innovation, flexibilitet, tillgänglighet och snabbhet till marknaden kan uppnås av nya, små och medelstora företag. Cloud computing är möjligt för dessa företag att skapa mycket skalbara applikationer, vilka kan hanterar tiotals miljoner aktiva användare varje dag. Detta examensarbete handlar om utformning, genomförande, demonstration och utvärdering av en mycket skalbar molnbaseradearkitekturer som utformats för höga prestanda och snabb utveckling av nya företag, såsom Ifoodbag AB, för att uppfylla kravet på deras webb- baserad applikation. Detta examensarbete undersöker hur man både skalar upp och ner dynamiskt, eftersom det inte finns någon anledning att tillägna applikationer mer eller mindre resurser än vad som faktiskt behövs för stunden. Som en del av examensarbetet implementeras och testas den föreslagna utformningen, samt presenterar flera riktlinjer, branchstandarder och rekommendationer för att optimera automatisk skalning av processer. Testresultat och de analyser som presenteras i detta examensarbete, visar tydligt att den föreslagna arkitekturen/modellen kan stödja resurskrävande applikationer, ger större flexibilitet och möjliggör snabb tillväxt av marknadsandelar för nya företag, utan att deras behov av att investera i en dyr infrastruktur.

In recent years there has been an exponential growth in Internet traffic resulting in increased network bandwidth requirements which, in turn, has led to stringent processing requirements on network layer devices like routers. Present backbone routers on OC 48 links (2.5Gbps) have to process four million minimum-sized packets per second. Further, the functionality supported in the network devices is also on the increase leading to programmable processors, such as Intel's IXP, Motorola's C5 and IBM's.NP. These processors support multiple processors and multiple threads to exploit packet-level-parallelism inherent in network workloads. This thesis studies the performance of network processors. We develop a Petri Net model for a commercial network processors (Intel IXP 2400,2850) for three different applications viz., IPv4 forwarding, Network Address Translation and IP security protocols. A salient feature of the Petri net model is its ability to model the application, architecture and their interaction in great detail. The model is validated using the intel proprietary tool (SDK 3.51 for IXP architecture) over a range of configurations. Our Performance evaluation results indicate that 1. The IXP processor is able to support a throughput of 2.5 Gbps for all modeled applications. 2. Packet buffer memory (DRAM) is the bottleneck resource in a network proces sor and even multithreading is ineffective beyond a total of 16 threads in case of header processing applications and beyond 32 threads for payload processing applications. Since DRAM is the bottleneck resource we explore the benefits of increasing the DRAM banks and other software schemes like offloading the packet header to SRAM. The second part of the thesis studies the impact of parallel processing in network processor on packet reordering and retransmission. Our results indicate that the concurrent processing of packets in a network processor and buffer allocation schemes in TFIFO leads to a significant packet reordering, (61%), on a 10-hop network (with packet sizes of 64 B) which in turn leads to a 76% retransmission under the TCP fast-restransmission algorithm. We explore different transmit buffer allocation schemes namely, contiguous, strided, local, and global for transmit buffer which reduces the packet retransmission to 24%. Our performance results also indicate that limiting the number of microengines can reduce the extent of packet reordering while providing the same throughput. We propose an alternative scheme, Packetsort, which guarantees complete packet ordering while achieving a throughput of 2.5 Gbps. Further, we observe that Packetsort outperforms, by up to 35%, the in-built schemes in the IXP processor namely, Inter Thread Signaling (ITS) and Asynchronous Insert and Synchronous Remove (AISR). The final part of this thesis investigates the performance of the network processor in a bursty traffic scenario. We model bursty traffic using a Pareto distribution. We consider a parallel and pipelined buffering schemes and their impact on packet drop under bursty traffic. Our results indicate that the pipelined buffering scheme outperforms the parallel scheme.

Net Neutrality implicates that all data being transmitted online is treated equal by Internet Service Providers. In 2016, the public debate regarding Net Neutrality in Sweden started growing as two major Mobile Network Operators were investigated by the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority for violation of European Union Net Neutrality regulations. Several studies have been conducted regarding Net Neutrality, most of them written in a legal, financial or technological perspective. This study takes another direction, aimed at understanding the consumer’s point of view regarding Net Neutrality. This study investigates whether or not consumers are aware of the subject and if so, how they value it. To measure this, an online survey was constructed, containing a total of 12 questions and statements. 77 people participated in the survey and out of these, 10 people participated in qualitative follow-up interviews. The interviews were semi-structured and individually designed according to each participant’s answers in the survey. This was done in order to gain a deeper understanding of the consumer’s reasoning while answering the survey. The results show that consumers lack knowledge regarding Net Neutrality. A major part of the consumers had not heard of the term or did not know the meaning of it, making it hard to determine whether or not the consumers value NN. However, when given a more concrete example of the implications of Internet Traffic Management from ISPs, the participants had a better understanding of what kind of implications NN could have on their Internet usage. They valued the implications of Net Neutrality, even though they did not know the theory of the term itself. The study also revealed that consumers have a big confidence in National Regulatory Authorities when it comes to looking after the openness of the Internet. Therefore, it is likely that National Regulatory Authorities must inform and educate consumers in the matter of Net Neutrality for them to value it and see its long-term implications. / Nätneutralitet innebär kortfattat att all data som skickas över Internet ska behandlas likvärdigt utav Internetleverantörer (ISP). Under 2016 växte debatten kring nätneutralitet i Sverige då två stycken mobiloperatörer utreddes utav Post- och Telestyrelsen. Båda dessa mobiloperatörer lanserade kampanjer till sina kunder som ansågs strida mot EU:s förordning 2015/2120 rörande nätneutralitet. Ett antal studier har redan gjorts på ämnet nätneutralitet, dock har de flesta haft en infallsvinkel där man tittat på juridiska, finansiella eller tekniska perspektiv. Den här studien har en annan infallsvinkel och riktar sig istället mot konsumenters syn på nätneutralitet. Den ämnar undersöka huruvida konsumenter känner till begreppet nätneutralitet och om de gör det, hur värderar de konceptet? För att undersöka detta konstruerades en online-enkät, innehållandes 12 frågor. 77 personer deltog i enkäten och utav dessa så deltog 10 personer i uppföljande, kvalitativa intervjuer. Intervjuerna var semi-strukturerade och individuella med frågor baserade på individens svar i enkäten. Dessa intervjuer var till för att ge en fördjupad förståelse av konsumenternas syn på nätneutralitet och deras resonemang kring svaren under enkäten. Resultaten visar att konsumenter, deltagande i den här studien, har låg kunskap kring nätneutralitet. Majoriteten utav deltagarna hade inte hört termen eller kände inte till dess mening, vilket gjorde det svårt att dra några slutsatser kring huruvida konsumenterna värderar konceptet. Men när konsumenterna fick ett mer konkret exempel på hur Internetleverantörers datahantering påverkar kundernas Internetanvändande så tycktes konsumenterna förstå vilka implikationer nätneutralitet kan ha på deras eget Internetanvändande. De tycktes således värdera innebörden av nätneutralitet, även om de inte förstod teorin kring konceptet. Studien påvisade också att konsumenter har en stor tilltro till vederbörande myndighet, Post- och Telestyrelsen här i Sverige, när det gäller att se efter Internets öppenhet och mångfald. Det är därför troligt att Post- och Telestyrelsen kommer att behöva informera och utbilda konsumenter rörande nätneutralitet för att få konsumenter att se värdet av och de långsiktiga implikationerna utav det.

This thesis concerns measuring, understanding and modelling Internet traffic. We first study the origins of the statistical properties of Internet traffic, in particular its scaling behaviour, and propose a constructive model of packet traffic with physically motivated parameters. We base our analysis on a large amount of empirical data measured on different networks, and use a so called semi-experimental approach to isolate certain features of traffic we seek to model. These results lead to the choice of a particular Poisson cluster process, known as Bartlett-Lewis point process, for a new packet traffic model. This model has a small number of parameters with simple networking meaning, and is mathematically tractable. It allows us to gain valuable insight on the underlying mechanisms creating the observed statistics. / In practice, Internet traffic measurements are limited by the very large amount of data generated by high bandwidth links. This leads us to also investigate traffic sampling strategies and their respective inversion methods. We argue that the packet sampling mechanism currently implemented in Internet routers is not practical when one wants to infer the statistics of the full traffic from partial measurements. We advocate the use of flow sampling for many purposes. We show that such sampling strategy is much easier to invert and can give reasonable estimates of higher order traffic statistics such as distribution of number of packets per flow and spectral density of the packet arrival process. This inversion technique can also be used to fit the Bartlett-Lewis point process model from sampled traffic. / We complete our understanding of Internet traffic by focusing on the small scale behaviour of packet traffic. To do so, we use data from a fully instrumented Tier-1 router and measure the delays experienced by all the packets crossing it. We present a simple router model capable of simply reproducing the measured packet delays, and propose a scheme to export router performance information based on busy periods statistics. We conclude this thesis by showing how the Bartlett-Lewis point process can model the splitting and merging of packet streams in a router.