Roadmap

Version 20.08 (2020 August)

• performance optimizations in mlx drivers for Arm platforms
• mlx5 vDPA device counters
• IF proxy
• l2fwd forwarding between asymmetric ports
• performance test application for flow rules
• octeontx2 crypto lookaside protocol and event adapter
• regexdev
• regex driver based on libpcre
• UBSan in build

Version 20.11 (2020 November)

• rte_tm enhancement for OCTEON TX2

Nice to have - Future

• integrate RCU deferred resource reclamation API with LPM and hash libraries
• 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

20.08

• Proposal deadline (patch version v1): June 12, 2020
• First release candidate (-rc1): July 8, 2020
• Second release candidate (-rc2): July 20, 2020
• Release: August 4, 2020

20.11

• Release: November 2020

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.