xref: /dpdk/doc/guides/eventdevs/opdl.rst (revision 35bd0a5c5891a59eba4a5d3904ef2e6c471a520d)
1..  SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
2    Copyright(c) 2017 Intel Corporation.
3
4OPDL Eventdev Poll Mode Driver
5==================================
6
7The OPDL (Ordered Packet Distribution Library) eventdev is a specific\
8implementation of the eventdev API. It is particularly suited to packet\
9processing workloads that have high throughput and low latency requirements.\
10All packets follow the same path through the device. The order in which\
11packets  follow is determined by the order in which queues are set up.\
12Events are left on the ring until they are transmitted. As a result packets\
13do not go out of order
14
15
16Features
17--------
18
19The OPDL  eventdev implements a subset of features of the eventdev API;
20
21Queues
22 * Atomic
23 * Ordered (Parallel is supported as parallel is a subset of Ordered)
24 * Single-Link
25
26Ports
27 * Load balanced (for Atomic, Ordered, Parallel queues)
28 * Single Link (for single-link queues)
29
30
31Configuration and Options
32-------------------------
33
34The software eventdev is a vdev device, and as such can be created from the
35application code, or from the EAL command line:
36
37* Call ``rte_vdev_init("event_opdl0")`` from the application
38
39* Use ``--vdev="event_opdl0"`` in the EAL options, which will call
40  rte_vdev_init() internally
41
42Example:
43
44.. code-block:: console
45
46    ./your_eventdev_application --vdev="event_opdl0"
47
48
49Single Port Queue
50~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
51
52It is possible to create a Single Port Queue ``RTE_EVENT_QUEUE_CFG_SINGLE_LINK``.
53Packets dequeued from this queue do not need to be re-enqueued (as is the
54case with an ordered queue). The purpose of this queue is to allow for
55asynchronous handling of packets in the middle of a pipeline. Ordered
56queues in the middle of a pipeline cannot delete packets.
57
58
59Queue Dependencies
60~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
61
62As stated the order in which packets travel through queues is static in
63nature. They go through the queues in the order the queues are setup at
64initialisation ``rte_event_queue_setup()``. For example if an application
65sets up 3 queues, Q0, Q1, Q2 and has 3 associated ports P0, P1, P2 and
66P3 then packets must be
67
68 * Enqueued onto Q0 (typically through P0), then
69
70 * Dequeued from Q0 (typically through P1), then
71
72 * Enqueued onto Q1 (also through P1), then
73
74 * Dequeued from Q2 (typically through P2),  then
75
76 * Enqueued onto Q3 (also through P2), then
77
78 * Dequeued from Q3 (typically through P3) and then transmitted on the relevant \
79   eth port
80
81
82Limitations
83-----------
84
85The opdl implementation has a number of limitations. These limitations are
86due to the static nature of the underlying queues. It is because of this
87that the implementation can achieve such high throughput and low latency
88
89The following list is a comprehensive outline of the what is supported and
90the limitations / restrictions imposed by the opdl PMD
91
92 - The order in which packets moved between queues is static and fixed \
93   (dynamic scheduling is not supported).
94
95 - NEW, RELEASE are not explicitly supported. RX (first enqueue) implicitly \
96   adds NEW event types, and TX (last dequeue) implicitly does RELEASE event types.
97
98 - All packets follow the same path through device queues.
99
100 - Flows within queues are NOT supported.
101
102 - Event priority is NOT supported.
103
104 - Once the device is stopped all inflight events are lost. Applications should \
105   clear all inflight events before stopping it.
106
107 - Each port can only be associated with one queue.
108
109 - Each queue can have multiple ports associated with it.
110
111 - Each worker core has to dequeue the maximum burst size for that port.
112
113 - For performance, the rte_event flow_id should not be updated once packet\
114   is enqueued on RX.
115
116
117
118Validation & Statistics
119~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
120
121Validation can be turned on through a command line parameter
122
123.. code-block:: console
124
125    --vdev="event_opdl0,do_validation=1,self_test=1"
126
127If validation is turned on every packet (as opposed to just the first in
128each burst), is validated to have come from the right queue. Statistics
129are also produced in this mode. The statistics are available through the
130eventdev xstats API. Statistics are per port as follows:
131
132 - claim_pkts_requested
133 - claim_pkts_granted
134 - claim_non_empty
135 - claim_empty
136 - total_cycles
137