Behind the curtain of every website load and social media feed lies a vast, unseen network of Ethernet packets. These tiny data carriers, generated in staggering quantities, form the backbone of our online experiences. It’s not just human-driven; machine-to-machine communication contributes significantly to this digital symphony. Network devices, often overlooked, are the unacknowledged heroes, managing this traffic at its core. Today’s enterprise-grade switches handle terabits per second, but the cutting edge is far beyond. Google’s Jupiter fabric, for instance, was already managing petabit-scale networks back in 2013, showcasing the incredible pace of technological advancement.
While it’s fascinating to imagine the evolution of network technologies, this Medium series will focus on the present, exploring the powerful packet processing capabilities available on GCP today. We’ll dive into technologies like DPDK, gVNIC, and the Intel IPU E2000 (Titanium) that enable high-performance networking in the cloud.
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