Keynote Addresses

The Push of Network Processing to the Top of the Pyramid
Will Eatherton, Cisco Systems

With the shipment of the Carrier Routing System (CRS-1) by Cisco and the Silicon Packet Processor (SPP) device inside it, network processors now extend to the very high end of router systems. This talk will cover the architecture of the SPP as well as some of the trade-offs and challenges involved with its development. Additionally, the future challenges and requirements of network processing in router systems will be discussed.

Speaker: Will Eatherton joined Cisco in 2000 with the acquisition of Growth Networks, where he was one of the founding engineers. Will’s first contribution at Cisco was his role as the line card architect for HFR (known officially as the Carrier Routing System (CRS-1), a scalable multi-terabit router system), where he also led architecture of the Silicon Packet Processor, (SPP), the highest performance network processor in the industry today. Will now is lead architect for a centralized group (that he helped found) developing next generation packet processing technology for use across a range of Cisco platforms. Will has 20 patents and is considered an expert at Cisco on router datapath architecture, classification, network processors, and memory technology. Will has been a Cisco Distinguished Engineer since January of 2005.

Network Acceleration: Taking Intel Architecture a Step Forward
Hugh Wilkinson, Intel Corporation

Speaker: Hugh Wilkinson is a Senior Principal Engineer in Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group. For the last six years, he has been working on NPU architecture (IXP2800 family) within Intel. In addition, he has been working on fabric solutions for those NPUs (Advanced Switching Interconnect). Most recently, he has been working on making IA processors more effective in communication applications. Prior to working for Intel, he worked at Digital Equipment Corporation for 18 years, where he was the technical lead for terminal server products and subsequently IP switching products. He received a BS in Computer Science from Boston University.