1. NDIS 6.0 Roadmap and Value Statement
Igor Kostic
Lead Program Manager
Network Devices Platform microsoft.com
Microsoft Corporation
Aditya Dube
Software Design Engineer
Network Devices Platform
microsoft.com
Microsoft Corporation

2. Session Goals What’s in NDIS 6.0 What’s in it for you How to get it
Outline the NDIS 6.0 feature set
What’s in it for you
Provide you, our partners, with a tie between the NDIS 6.0 features and their value statement
How to get it
Present pointers to access NDIS 6.0 and the timeline for major deliverables

3. Session Outline Current situation and pain points
Main improvements targeted by NDIS 6.0
Performance and scalability
Reduced complexity
Manageability
NDIS 6.0 timeline
NDIS 6.0 resources
Call to Action

4. Current Situation & Pain Points
Limitations for adding innovation to the stack
IM driver complexity, performance loss
Hooking into NDIS
Limitations on performance and scalability
Single packet I/O
Lack of networking CPU scalability
Packet format translations reduce performance
Decreasing operational cost
Lack of standardized interfaces for configuration, deployment and management
Diagnostics
Increasing Return On Investment (ROI)
New NDIS, new drivers – poor down-level story

5. Technology Investments in NDIS 6.0
Scenarios
Technology
Creating Value
Adding innovation to the networking stack
Vendor differentiation
Improved performance for scalable networking
NetBufferLists (NBL)
Glitch-free & interrupt moderation
Giant Send Offload (GSO)
Receive-Side-Scaling (RSS)
MSI/MSI-X support
Light Weight Filter (LWF) drivers
Intermediate-Miniport Combination drivers
WDK Header Versioning
Preserving value
Increasing ROI
Improved driver quality
Reduced complexity
Decreasing operational cost
Versioned APIs
Sample drivers
Expanded test harness
Diagnostics
Standardized management of Network Interface Card (NIC) properties

6. Creating Value With NDIS 6.0 Hardware Innovation
Giant Send Offload (GSO)
Support for IPv6 and frame sizes over 64KB
More details at
TWNE05002_NDIS 6.0 Technical Update
Receive-Side Scaling (RSS)
Ability to scale networking loads across CPUs
Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI/MSI-x)
Don’t have to share interrupts
More details at:
TWNE NDIS 6.0 Technical Update

7. Creating Value With NDIS 6.0 Miniport Innovation
NetBufferList Data Structure
No translation in the data path
More details at:
TWNE05002_NDIS 6.0 Technical Update
Interrupt moderation
Ability to turn on/off interrupt moderation
More details on qWAVE at
TWMO05011_qWAVE and Network Quality of Service
Multipacket I/O
Allows for better SGDMA optimizations
More details available in the Windows Driver Kit (WDK)

8. Creating Value with NDIS 6.0 Enhancing the Stack
Intermediate-Miniport (IM-MP) combination driver
Reduced complexity, better performance
Light Weight Filters (LWFs)
Reduced complexity
Network Load Balancing solution ported from IM to LWF driver
Increases simplicity and offers better debugging
Easy installation
Network Monitor (NetMon) solution ported from protocol driver to LWF
Enables insertion of NetMon to different layers of the networking stack
Great performance
Packet Scheduling solution ported from IM to LWF
Offers better performance
PSched disabled: % CPU
PSched enabled (not active): % CPU
PACER disabled: 720 95% CPU;
PACER enabled (not active): % CPU
More details and samples available in WDK

9. Lightweight Filter Demo Set-Up
PC1 SENDER
PC2 RECEIVER
SEND
APPLICATION
RECEIVE
APPLICATION
WinSock
WinSock
TCP
NDIS Protocol
Driver
TCP
NDIS Protocol
Driver
Lightweight
Filter
IM Driver
NDIS
NDIS
Ethernet
Ethernet
NIC
NIC

10. Light Weight Filter Demo

11. Preserving Value with NDIS 6.0
Versioned APIs
Future driver versions will work on NDIS 6.0
More details in the WDK
Standardized Management of NICs
Standardized Keywords and OIDs
Enables testing for NICs from different vendors
Simplifies configuration and deployment
More details at:
TWNE05002_NDIS 6.0 Technical Update
Diagnostics
Basic NDIS diagnostics support assists in troubleshooting

12. Timeline WinHEC Planned for Windows codenamed “Longhorn” Beta 1
NDIS 6.0 send/receive data path (with NBL), LWF
Samples for LWF driver, updated E100B driver and NDISProt protocol driver
Planned for Windows codenamed “Longhorn” Beta 1
CoNDIS 6.0, NDIS IF
Sample IM MUX driver
November NDIS 6.0 plugfest
For more details send to microsoft.com
Planned for “Longhorn” Beta 2
Glitch-free, GSO, NDIS Diagnostics support
Samples for 10 Gbps NDIS 6.0, IM-MP combo driver

13. Call To Action Write new device drivers to NDIS 6.0
Port existing drivers to NDIS 6.0
Submit NDIS 6.0 drivers for in-build inclusion
Ensure that your device and driver work on x64-bit enabled Windows operating systems
Port Intermediate (IM) filter drivers to LWF

14. Community Resources Windows Hardware & Driver Central (WHDC)
Technical Communities
Non-Microsoft Community Sites
Microsoft Public Newsgroups
Technical Chats and Webcasts
Microsoft Blogs

15. Additional Resources NDIS 6.0 Driver Resources
Inbox driver submission – microsoft.com
NDIS 6.0 Beta Place – microsoft.com
NDISTest Beta Place – microsoft.com
Native Wi-Fi Beta Place – microsoft.com
Windows Driver Kit (WDK)
Documentation
Sample NDIS 6.0 drivers
WinHEC 2005 white papers
Porting NDIS 5.1 to NDIS 6.0
Writing a Light Weight Filter Driver
Porting NDIS 5.1 IM MUX to NDIS 6.0
Scalable Networking: Eliminating the Receive Processing Bottleneck - Introducing RSS
Web Resources
Newsgroups: Microsoft.public.development.device.drivers

16. BOF Announcements Microsoft-Intel BOF on I/OAT IPSec Offload BOF
Tuesday, April 26th
6:30 pm
Room 400
IPSec Offload BOF
7:30pm