The Network Processing Forum (NPF) is an

industry forum A trade association, also known as an industry trade group, business association, sector association or industry body, is an organization founded and funded by businesses that operate in a specific industry. An industry trade association partic ...

that was organized to facilitate and accelerate the development of next-generation networking and

telecommunications Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than tha ...

products based on

network processing A network processor is an integrated circuit which has a feature set specifically targeted at the networking application domain. Network processors are typically software programmable devices and would have generic characteristics similar to gene ...

technologies. The NPF was merged into the

Optical Internetworking Forum The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) is a prominent non-profit consortium that was founded in 1998. It promotes the development and deployment of interoperable computer networking products and services through implementation agreements (IAs) ...

in June 2006. The NPF produces Hardware, Software, and Benchmark Interoperability Agreements. These agreements enable equipment manufacturers to lower their time to market and development cost by enabling a robust, multi-vendor ecosystem. It also lowers the total cost of ownership of systems based on their interoperability agreements by enabling investments in test and verification infrastructure as well as enabling competition.

History of the NPF

The organization was formed to build on the efforts of two former industry groups, the Common Programming Interface Forum (CPIX) and the Common Switch Interface Consortium (CSIX). Chuck Sannipoli then of IBM was the first chairman of the NPF. Misha Nossik then of

Solidum Systems Solidum Systems was a fabless semiconductor company founded by Feliks Welfeld and Misha Nossik in Ottawa, Ontario Canada in 1997. The company developed a series of rule-based network classification semiconductor devices. Some of their devices could ...

, later acquired by

Integrated Device Technology Integrated Device Technology, Inc., is an American corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, that designs, manufactures, and markets low-power, high-performance mixed-signal semiconductor solutions for the advanced communications, com ...

was the second chairman of the NPF. Many of the original meetings were held in the

Drake Hotel Drake Hotel may refer to: ;in Canada * Drake Hotel (Toronto), Ontario ;in the United States (by state) *Drake Hotel (Chicago, Illinois), listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) *Drake Hotel (Gallup, New Mexico), NRHP-listed in M ...

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. The NPF was later absorbed by the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) in June 2006.

Organizational form

The NPF is a member-managed non-profit corporation and operates as a contribution-driven, parliamentary industry forum. Russell Dietz of HiFn is the current chairman and Chuck Sannipoli representing IP Infusion is the vice-chairman. The NPF's board was composed of representatives of

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Sweden, Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in ...

, HiFn, IBM,

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...

, IP Infusion, and

PMC-Sierra PMC-Sierra was a global fabless semiconductor company with offices worldwide that developed and sold semiconductor devices into the storage, communications, optical networking, printing, and embedded computing marketplaces. On January 15, 2016, ...

Hardware interoperability agreements

The

Look-Aside Interface The Look-Aside Interface is a computer interface that was specified by an interface interoperability agreement produced by the Network Processing Forum. It specifies the method to interface a Network Processing Element (of which an NPU is an exa ...

(LA) is used by Network Processing Elements (NPE)s to access

Network Search Element Computer networks are connected together to form larger networks such as campus networks, corporate networks, or the Internet. Routers are network devices that may be used to connect these networks (e.g., a home network connected to the network of ...

s, of which CAMs are an example. The Streaming Interface (NPF-SI) is used by NPEs to talk to each other and to framing devices and to switching devices.

Software interoperability agreements

Service Application Programming Agreements, (SAPI)s, provide an API to configure or use a service. The following SAPIs have been approved by the NPF: * Interface Management API, IPSec Service API, HA Service API, Diffserv Services API, IPv4 Unicast Forwarding Service API, IPv6 Unicast Forwarding Service API, MPLS Forwarding Service API, Functional APIs, (FAPI)s, are used to configure or use a low level functional block. The following FAPIs have been approved by the NPF: * IPv4 Prefix LPF and FAPI, Generic Classifier LFB and FAPI, Topology Manager FAPI, Messaging LFB,

Benchmarking interoperability agreements

The NPF has created benchmarks for IP forwarding, IPSEC performance, MPLS forwarding, and switch fabric performance.

Joint projects

The NPF specified a High Availability framework and service API in conjunction with the Service Availability Forum (SAF). The NPF has also had extensive liaison activity with the

. In December 2004, the NPF became a founding member of the Mountain View Alliance, a consortium of consortia created to enable Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions.

External links

NPF Interoperability Agreements on the OIF site
{{reflist Technology consortia