IPSec is a suite of protocols that adds security to communications at the IP level. Protocols within the IPSec suite make extensive use of cryptographic algorithms. Since these algorithms are computationally very intensive, some hardware acceleration is needed to support high throughput. In this paper we discuss a scheduling algorithm for distributing IPSec packet processing over the CPU with a software implementation of the cryptographic algorithms considered and multiple cryptographic

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... tors. This algorithm also provides support for quality of service. High-level simulations and the related results are provided to show the properties of the algorithm. Some architectural improvements suitable to better exploit this scheduling algorithm are also presented.