Data Plane Development Kit (DPDK) is a set of libraries and network drivers for highly efficient, low latency packet processing. This is achieved through several techniques, such as kernel TCP/IP bypass, NUMA locality, multi-core processing, and device access via polling to eliminate the performance overhead of interrupt processing. In addition, DPDK ensures transmission reliability, handles retransmission, and controls congestion.
DPDK implementations are available from several sources. OS vendors such as Redhat and Ubuntu provide DPDK implementations through distribution channels. Mellanox OpenFabrics Enterprise Distribution for Linux (Mellanox OFED), which is a suite of libraries, tools, and drivers supporting Mellanox NICs, offers its own DPDK implementation.
The Content Software for File system relies on the DPDK implementation provided by Mellanox OFED on servres equipped with Mellanox NICs. For servers equipped with Intel NICs, DPDK support is through the Intel driver for the card.