DPU Programming using DOCA
April 14-17, 2026
Hawaii
Organizers
University of South Carolina (USC)
Overview
Data Processing Units (DPUs) are programmable processors designed to offload and accelerate infrastructure workloads and data processing. This workshop introduces the NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPU and examines its programming models including the DOCA SDK, P4, and DPDK. It also demonstrates cybersecurity applications offloaded to the DPU.
Audience
The target audience for this tutorial includes Information Technology (IT) professionals and practitioners, researchers, and application developers. The tutorial can also be useful for instructors interested in teaching DPU-related technologies in the classrooms.
Tutorial Goals
The workshop aims to equip participants with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills related to packet processing in high-speed networks. By the end of this workshop, attendees will:
- Understand the programming models of DPUs
- Understand the DPU hardware platforms
- Describe the elements of the Portable NIC Architecture (PNA), define and parse protocol headers and header fields in P4, define match-action tables, and populate them at runtime
- Accelerate packet processing using the Receive Side Scaling (RSS), which distributes packets across multiple CPU cores
- Understand using DPUs across FABRIC testbed sites
Understand the NSF-supported cybertraining lab libraries
Pre-requisites
Connectivity to the Internet and a browser to access the online virtual platform. Attendees will be provided with an account to access USC’s NETLAB system: https://netlab.cec.sc.edu/
Agenda
Day 1: Wednesday, April 15
| Time (GMT) | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 5:00 - 7:00 PM | Demo Night - Accelerating Attack and Fault Detection in Cyber-Physical Systems Using SmartNICs and DPDK [ppt, pdf] | Samia Choueiri |
| Demo Night - Real-Time Detection of Encrypted DGA and DNS Tunneling Using DPDK on SmartNICs [ppt, pdf] | Sergio Elizalde | |
| Demo Night - Comparative Design and Performance Analysis of Encrypted Traffic Classification on Host and SmartNIC with P4-DPDK, DPDK, and DPA at line rate [ppt, pdf] | Amith GSPN | |
| Demo Night - Behavioral State Analysis in Campus Network Traffic [ppt, pdf] | Laura Salazar | |
| Demo Night - Runtime Memory Introspection for Behavioral System Monitoring using BlueField DPUs [ppt, pdf] | Liwaa Albanna |
Day 2: Thursday, April 16
| Time (GMT) | Topic | Presenter |
|---|---|---|
| 9:05 - 9:50 AM | Hands-on Tutorial on Data Processing Units (DPUs) [ppt, pdf] | Amith GSPN, Samia Choueiri |
| 11:05 - 11:50 AM | Accelerating Attack and Fault Detection in Cyber-Physical Systems Using SmartNICs and DPDK [ppt, pdf] | Samia Choueiri |
| Runtime Memory Introspection for Behavioral System Monitoring using BlueField DPUs [ppt, pdf] | Liwaa Albanna |
Access to Lab Platform
To access the lab platform, please use the following URL: https://netlab.cec.sc.edu/
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