Introduction

Stateful Flow Management

Platform
Napatech SmartNIC
Content Type
User Guide
Capture Software Version
Link™ Capture Software 12.11

As network speeds increase exponentially, the challenge for every network appliance and application is to keep up with ever-increasing traffic. Flow management and flow awareness can alleviate this problem.

In this document

The Napatech stateful flow management decodes every frame, performs flow classification and looks up the flow in the flow table. Actions are taken in the SmartNIC based on the rules which are fully controlled by the application. The SmartNIC can, for example, forward flows to the application for further precessing and/or transmit flows on one or more ports so as to be delivered to the destination or to be processed by another network appliance. The SmartNIC can also drop received frames to block known sources of malicious flows. This document describes how to use the Napatech stateful flow management and related features.