Roadmap

Version 21.05 (2021 May)

• Arm CRC32 in generic API
• Aarch32 cross-compilation support
• Tx QoS marking API
• device identifier syntax for SF representor
• flow action for connection tracking window
• flow match on packet integrity checks
• single flow rule dump
• shared meter policy
• packets per second metering
• AVF software back-end driver with device emulation libraries
• thash library predictable RSS support
• af_xdp preferred busy polling support
• hns3 PTP (Precise Time Protocol)
• hns3 link and descriptors status
• hns3 runtime selection of Rx/Tx function
• hns3 extended statistics and registers info
• hns3 update for Kunpeng 930
• iavf UMWAIT/UMONITOR instructions support
• ice & iavf flow filter for IP fragment and GTPU support/enhancement
• ice & iavf AVX-512 support with and without hardware offloads
• ice on Windows
• mlx5 SF (Scalable Function) representor
• mlx5 idle power saving with x86 UMWAIT
• mlx5 VLAN push/pop in any Rx/Tx direction
• mlx5 connection tracking window and packet integrity checks
• mlx5 metering policy and packets per second
• mlx5 inline IPsec ESP crypto
• octeontx2 mirroring
• octeontx3 base driver for mempool, ethdev, eventdev and rte_flow support
• qede initial support for next generation hardware
• qede flow API support
• Wangxun driver for 1Gb NICs
• vhost async control path refactoring
• virtio packed ring enqueue acceleration via DMA
• testpmd multi-process support
• l3fwd FIB support
• IF proxy
• performance test for IP reassembly
• IPv6 in lookaside IPsec example
• anti-replay in inline IPsec example
• mlx5 AES-XTS look-aside crypto
• event vector support to reduce scheduler overhead and to improve performance
• event vector support in SW Rx eventdev adapter
• event driver support for dynamic load balancer 2.5
• regex driver based on libpcre
• mlx5 regex with chained mbufs
• dynamic load balancer event driver common code consolidation
• UBSan in build

Nice to have - Future

• lock-free l3fwd algorithms
• multi-process rework
• automatic UIO/VFIO binding
• infiniband driver class (ibdev)
• default configuration from files
• generic white/blacklisting
• libedit integration

Cycle model

A typical release should be done after 3 months.

It is designed to allow DPDK to keep evolving at a rapid pace while giving enough opportunity to review, discuss and improve the contributions.

The merge window will open once the previous release is complete. First version of a new feature must be submitted before the proposal deadline. Features that miss this first period will be deferred until the next release.

Updated versions of patches (v2, v3, etc.) will be submitted to address comments. The new features must be properly reviewed, tested and accepted before the integration deadline. Otherwise, they will be postponed to the next releases.

At the end of the merge window, the first release candidate is out.

The last period is 1 month long and is dedicated to bug fixing.

Scheduling

21.05

• Proposal deadline (RFC/v1 patches): 18 March 2021
• API freeze (-rc1): 21 April 2021
• PMD features freeze (-rc2): 5 May 2021
• Release: 21 May 2021

Stable Releases

There is a documentation page describing the guidelines of the stable releases.

Stable point releases follow mainline releases.

After each -rc tag and after the final version, relevant bug fixes get backported by the stable maintainers into the respective branches in “bursts”.

Developers can provide stable-specific patches by sending them to stable@dpdk.org only (avoiding dev@dpdk.org).

After all the relevant bugfixes have been backported, regression tests are run, and if clear, the stable release is announced.

Typically a new stable release version follows a mainline release by 1-2 weeks, depending on the test results.