Feature Comparison

From Green Bay 2 to Link-Capture™ Software 12.8

Platform
Napatech SmartNIC
Content Type
Migration Document
Capture Software Version
Link™ Capture Software 12.8

Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 versus Green Bay 2

This table gives an overview of the differences in features between the Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 release for 4GA SmartNICs and the Green Bay 2 release for 3GA SmartNICs.

Feature Green Bay 2 Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 Comment
Front Ports
100 Gbit/s CFP4 LR4 on NT100E3-1-PTP Yes Yes -
100 Gbit/s CFP4 SR4 on NT100E3-1-PTP No Yes -
Packet Descriptors
Standard packet descriptor Yes Yes A number of fields are not used in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 (see DN-1128).
PCAP packet descriptor Yes Yes PCAP descriptors are not 8-byte aligned in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8, and the FCS is removed from the frames, which is reflected in the stored length. This means that the PCAP descriptors are now fully PCAP-compliant.
Extended packet descriptor 7 Yes No -
Extended packet descriptor 8 Yes No -
Extended packet descriptor 9 Yes Yes The TX fields and a number of other fields are not supported in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 (see Extended Descriptor 9), and the descriptor now has a fixed length (see DN-1128).
Dynamic packet descriptor 1 No Yes -
Dynamic packet descriptor 2 No Yes -
Dynamic packet descriptor 3 No Yes -
Dynamic packet descriptor 4 No Yes -
HAL macros Yes Yes -
RX Time-Stamping
End-of-frame time stamps Yes Yes -
Start-of-frame time stamps Yes Yes -
Native time stamp format Yes No -
Native UNIX time stamp format Yes Yes -
Native UNIX ns time stamp format No Yes -
Native NDIS time stamp format Yes No -
PCAP-ns time stamp format Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 the time resolution is 1 ns, while in Green Bay 2 the time resolution was 4 ns.
PCAP-μs time stamp format Yes Yes -
Time Synchronization
OS time synchronization Yes Yes -
Synchronization of OS time to SmartNIC time Yes Yes -
NT-TS time synchronization Yes Yes Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 only supports the NT-TS signal on the internal time synchronization connectors.
PPS time synchronization Yes Yes -
PPS output Yes Yes -
PPS-triggered clock sampling Yes Yes -
PTP time synchronization Yes Yes There are a number of limitations in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 (see below).
IEEE 1588-2008 PTP slave Yes Yes -
IEEE 1588-2008 PTP master Yes No -
PTP Default profile Yes Yes -
PTP Telecom profile Yes Yes -
PTP Power profile Yes Yes -
PTP Enterprise profile No Yes -
PTP G.8275.1 profile No Yes -
SyncE slave frequency synchronization Yes Yes -
SyncE master frequency synchronization Yes No -
Time of day and phase reference failover Yes Yes -
Frequency reference failover Yes Yes -
Multi-Port Packet Merge
Software merge across SmartNICs Yes Yes -
Hardware merge on a single SmartNIC Yes Yes -
QPI bypass in an NT100E3-1-PTP interconnect solution No Yes -
Frame Classification
ISL encapsulation, VLAN tags, MPLS encapsulation Yes Yes There is a slight difference for ISL. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
VN-Tag classification No Yes -
Layer 2: EtherII, Novell_RAW, SNAP, LLC, others Yes Yes There are slight differences, and the Other class is new in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Layer 3: IPv4, IPv6, IPX, others Yes Yes IPX is not supported in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8, and there are slight differences for IPv4 and IPv6. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Layer 4: TCP, UDP, ICMP, GRE_v0, SCTP, others Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 GRE_v0 is included in the tunnel type classification instead of layer 4, and there is a slight difference for TCP. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Layer 4 port: GTPv0-U, GTPv1v2-C, GTPv1-U, others Yes No -
Tunnel type: GTPv1v2-C, GTPv1-U_signaling, GTPv1-U_GPDU Yes No -
Tunnel type: GTPv1-C, GTPv2-C, GTPv1-U, GRE_v0, GRE_v1, EtherIP, VXLAN No Yes -
Tunnel type: GTPv0-U, IPinIP, others Yes Yes There is a slight difference for GTPv0-U but IPinIP and TunnelType_Other are the same in Green Bay 2 and Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Inner layer 2: VLAN tags, MPLS encapsulation No Yes -
Inner layer 3: IPv4, IPv6, others Yes Yes There are slight differences. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Inner layer 4: TCP, UDP, ICMP, GRE_v0, SCTP, others Yes Yes There are slight differences, and GRE_v0 is not included in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Ethernet checksum verification Yes Yes -
IP, UDP and TCP checksum verification Yes Yes Layer 3 and layer 4 checksum verification is implemented in NT200A02, NT100A01 and NT50B01 SmartNICs running on test and measurement images in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 but the implementation differs. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. See also HAL Macros.
IP match classification Yes Yes This functionality has been extended in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. The number of match entries has been increased, and address groups and wildcard matches have been included. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Filtering and Coloring
64 general-purpose filters Yes Yes The filter architecture is new in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Physical port number filter Yes Yes -
Pattern compare filter Yes Yes The ByteStr32 data type is not supported in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8, and data values and data masks are restricted compared to Green Bay 2 (see NTPL and Pattern Compare).
Size compare filter Yes Yes This functionality has been extended in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 to support comparison of subsets of frames.
Protocol filter Yes Yes More protocols are supported in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Error conditions filter Yes Yes Not all error conditions are supported in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
IP match filter Yes Yes This functionality has been extended in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. The number of match entries has been increased, and address groups and wildcard matches have been included. However, the IP match function is not implemented in the same way in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 as in Green Bay 2. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Flow match filter based on key test No Yes -
Coloring Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 color information can be added in a key test filter. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Color mask No Yes -
Deduplication and Correlation Key
Correlation key Yes Yes The implementation differs. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Deduplication Yes Yes The implementation has been changed and much improved to be able to handle traffic up to 2 x 100 Gbit/s at full wire speed and with much larger packet windows. It is now possible to perform deduplication on specific types of traffic making the feature much more usable and effective. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Slicing and Decapsulation
Hard-slicing Yes Yes In Green Bay 2 frames are hard-sliced to 16383 bytes in the PHY/MAC and 10000 bytes during the frame processing, so the NT_NET_GET_PKT_WIRE_LENGTH macro returns a number between 10000 and 16383 for hard-sliced frames. In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 frames are hard-sliced to 10000 bytes in the PHY/MAC, so the NT_NET_GET_PKT_WIRE_LENGTH macro always returns 10000 for hard-sliced frames.
Fixed slicing Yes Yes -
Dynamic slicing Yes Yes An end-of-frame dynamic offset has been added in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 enabling bytes to be sliced off from the end of the frame by applying a negative offset. This can be used, for instance, for frame checksum removal. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
MPLS decapsulation Yes No -
Hashing
Hash key types Yes Yes -
Dynamic hash key selection Yes Yes There are differences with respect to IPMatch. See DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
GTP tunneling support Yes Yes -
IPinIP tunneling support Yes Yes -
GRE tunneling support Yes Yes -
NVGRE tunneling support No Yes -
Tuple swap controlled by IP match filter Yes Yes The implementation differs. Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 uses a workaround. See DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Tuple swap controlled by receive port number Yes Yes -
Hash key masks Yes Yes There are slight differences. See DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Hashing with configurable field selection No Yes -
Multi-CPU Distribution
Per-port CPU distribution Yes Yes -
Hash-based CPU distribution Yes Yes -
Filter-based CPU distribution Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 stream information can be added in a key test filter. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Combined hash- and filter-based CPU distribution Yes Yes -
IP Fragment Handling
IP fragment handling Yes Yes Inner fragments are not handled in the same way in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 as in Green Bay 2 (see IP Fragment Handling).
Local Retransmission
Local retransmission between ports on one SmartNIC Yes Yes The implementation differs; and local retransmission of a frame on multiple ports is not supported in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Local retransmission with embedded time stamp No Yes -
Line loopback Yes Yes -
Host-Based Transmission
Host-based transmission from a host buffer on a specified port Yes Yes The implementation differs. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Host-based transmission of packets from a single host buffer on different ports depending on the port specification in the packet descriptor of the individual packets Yes Yes The implementation differs. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Limitation of transmit rate Yes Yes The implementation differs. In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 the transmit rate can be limited by using the NT_ConfigWrite function with the NT_CONFIG_PARM_PORT_SETTINGS_V2 parameter and the NtPortSettings_v2_s structure or by using the config tool with the --tx_port_rate_limit option. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
TX on time stamp Yes Yes The implementation differs. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
IP, UDP and TCP checksum generation Yes Yes Layer 3 and layer 4 checksum generation is implemented in NT200A02, NT100A01 and NT50B01 SmartNICs running on test and measurement images in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 but the implementation differs. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Injection of time stamp Yes Yes Time stamp injection is implemented in NT200A02, NT100A01 and NT50B01 SmartNICs running on test and measurement images in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 but the implementation differs. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Generation of new CRCs for transmitted frames Yes Yes -
Transmission of frames with the CRC stored in the frame without generating a new one Yes Yes The feature is implemented in NT200A02, NT100A01 and NT50B01 SmartNICs running on test and measurement images in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 but the implementation differs. See DN-1128 and DN-0449 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Buffer System
Back-to-back storage of frames No Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 frames are stored back-to-back in the host buffer with no padding in between per default, while in Green Bay 2 frames were always 8-byte aligned and zero-padded.
Maximum number of host buffers 32 128 128 host buffers are only available with dynamic segment size. With static segment size the maximum number of host buffers is 64.
Maximum host buffer size 128 GBytes 1 TByte -
Total host buffer memory 128 GBytes 1 TByte -
Segment sizes supported (in MB) default, 1, 2, 4 default, dynamic, 1, 2, 4 In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 dynamic segment size is recommended for packet-based interface, while static segment size (1, 2 or 4 MBytes) is recommended for segment-based interface. Dynamic segment size enables up to 128 host buffers, while static segment size enables up to 64 host buffers.
Note: The default value of the HostBufferSegmentSizeRx parameter is default, which in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 corresponds to dynamic, while in Green Bay 2 it corresponded to 1 MByte.
Onboard packet buffering Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 the OnBoardMemorySplit parameter has an additional value.
IOMMU support Yes Yes -
Statistics
Frame classifications Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 giant undersize frames are not automatically considered as bad frames, and a frame can be large and still be a baby giant. This makes the counters RMON-compatible. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
RMON1 counters per port Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 jabbers counts all large erroneous frames including hard-sliced frames. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Extended RMON1 counters per port Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 pktsHardSlice is always 0, since all hard-sliced frames are considered to be erroneous. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Checksum counters per port Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 checksum counters per port are working in NT200A02, NT100A01 and NT50B01 SmartNICs running on test and measurement images. For all other SmartNICs the checksum counters are always 0 since IP, UDP and TCP checksum verification is not supported. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
Packet decoding counters per port Yes Yes -
Extended drop counters per port Yes Yes In Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 pktsFilterDrop and octetsFilterDrop have been added, and pktsMacBandwidth is also always 0. See DN-1128 for the implementation in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8.
IP fragment counters per port Yes Yes -
Statistics per color Yes Yes -
Statistics per stream ID Yes Yes -
Synchronized statistics across SmartNICs Yes Yes -
Performance
PCIe performance for NT100E3-1-PTP 56 Gbit/s 112 Gbit/s -
PCIe performance for NT40E3-4-PTP and NT20E3-2-PTP 56 Gbit/s 56 Gbit/s -
Other features
Properties No Yes See also DN-0810 and DN-0449.
Operating Systems
Linux Yes Yes Different versions are supported in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 compared to Green Bay 2.
FreeBSD Yes No -
Windows Yes Yes Different versions are supported in Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 compared to Green Bay 2, and Link-Capture™ Software 12.8 only supports 64-bit.