What DPDK is and why telecom uses it

DPDK Explained

The Data Plane Development Kit is an open-source framework for high-performance packet processing in user space. Originally developed at Intel, now stewarded by the Linux Foundation, DPDK is the foundation of nearly every commercial UPF and high-performance virtual switch in production. The core idea is kernel bypass: instead of letting the kernel allocate sk_buff structures, parse protocols, and copy data to user space, the application polls NIC DMA rings directly from user space. A DPDK process maps the NIC's registers and packet buffers into its own address space using VFIO or UIO drivers.…