Morpheus is a special-purpose programming language that facilitates the efficient implementation of communication protocols. Protocols are divided into three categories, called shapes, so that they can inherit code and data structures based on their category. The programmer implements a particular protocol by refining the inherited structure. Morpheus optimization techniques reduce per-layer overhead on time-critical operations to a few assembler instructions even though the protocol stack is not determined until run time. This supports divide-and-conquer simplification of the programming task by minimizing the penalty for decomposing complex protocols into combinations of simpler protocols.>

Integrating protocol data manipulations is a strategy for increasing the throughput of network protocols. The idea is to combine a series of protocol layers into a pipeline so as to access message data more efficiently. This paper introduces a widely-applicable technique for integrating protocols. This technique not only improves performance, but also preserves the modularity of protocol layers by automatically integrating independently expressed protocols. The paper also describes a prototype integration tool, and studies the performance limits and scalability of protocol integration.>

Morpheus is special-purpose programming language that facilitates the efficient implementation of communication protocols. Protocols are divided into three categories, called shapes, so that they can inherit code and data structures based on their category; the programmer implements a particular protocol by refining the inherited structure. Morpheus optimization techniques reduce per-layer overhead on time-critical operations to a few assembler instructions even though the protocol stack is not determined until runtime. This supports divide-and-conquer simplification of the programming task by minimizing the penalty for decomposing complex protocols into combinations of simpler protocols.

This paper reports our experiences implementing remote procedure call (RPC) protocols in the x-kernel. This exercise is interesting because the RPC protocols exploit two novel design techniques: virtual protocols and layered protocols. These techniques are made possible because the x-kernel provides an object-oriented infrastructure that supports three significant features: a uniform interface to all protocols, a late binding between protocol layers, and a small overhead for invoking any given protocol layer. For each design technique, the paper motivates the technique with a concrete example, describes how it is applied to the implementation of RPC protocols, and presents the results of experiments designed to evaluate the technique.