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Title: Aho-Corasick String Matching on Shared and Distributed Memory Parallel Architectures

Journal Article · · IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems

String matching is at the core of many critical applications, including network intrusion detection systems, search engines, virus scanners, spam filters, DNA and protein sequencing, and data mining. For all of these applications string matching requires a combination of (sometimes all) the following characteristics: high and/or predictable performance, support for large data sets and flexibility of integration and customization. Many software based implementations targeting conventional cache-based microprocessors fail to achieve high and predictable performance requirements, while Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementations and dedicated hardware solutions fail to support large data sets (dictionary sizes) and are difficult to integrate and customize. The advent of multicore, multithreaded, and GPU-based systems is opening the possibility for software based solutions to reach very high performance at a sustained rate. This paper compares several software-based implementations of the Aho-Corasick string searching algorithm for high performance systems. We discuss the implementation of the algorithm on several types of shared-memory high-performance architectures (Niagara 2, large x86 SMPs and Cray XMT), distributed memory with homogeneous processing elements (InfiniBand cluster of x86 multicores) and heterogeneous processing elements (InfiniBand cluster of x86 multicores with NVIDIA Tesla C10 GPUs). We describe in detail how each solution achieves the objectives of supporting large dictionaries, sustaining high performance, and enabling customization and flexibility using various data sets.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
DOE Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1034574
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA-74248; 400470000; TRN: US201203%%627
Journal Information:
IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol. 23, Issue 3
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English