Nice research paper regarding performance issues in networking

An excellent paper by Wenji Wu, Matt Crawford and Mark Bowden of Fermi Labs, DOE, titled "The Performance Analysis of Linux Networking – Packet Receiving" is available here.

The authors trace the delivery of a packet from the Network Interface Card to the Application Layer consuming the packet, in the Linux protocol stack. They discuss the operating systems subtelities involved in this entire process and demonstrate the challanges in delivering high network throughput to the application layer. Experimental results discuss the impact of changing some parameters such as the number of packet descriptors to improve network performance. Must read for those interested in high-speed network performance issues.