Building a fast, virtualized data plane with programmable hardware

Muhammad Bilal Anwer, Nick Feamster

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

40 Scopus citations

Abstract

Network virtualization allows many networks to share the same underlying physical topology; this technology has offered promise both for experimentation and for hosting multiple networks on a single shared physical infrastructure. Much attention has focused on virtualizing the network control plane, but, ultimately, a limiting factor in the deployment of these virtual networks is data-plane performance: Virtual networks must ultimately forward packets at rates that are comparable to native, hardware-based approaches. Aside from proprietary solutions from vendors, hardware support for virtualized data planes is limited. The advent of open, programmable network hardware promises flexibility, speed, and resource isolation, but, unfortunately, hardware does not naturally lend itself to virtualization. We leverage emerging trends in programmable hardware to design a flexible, hardware-based data plane for virtual networks. We present the design, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of this hardware-based data plane and show how the proposed design can support many virtual networks without compromising performance or isolation.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationSIGCOMM 2009 - Proceedings of the 2009 SIGCOMM Conference and Co-Located Workshops, VISA 2009
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages1-8
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781605585956
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 17 2009
Event1st Workshop on Virtualized Infrastructure Systems and Architectures, VISA 2009 - Barcelona, Spain
Duration: Aug 17 2009 → …

Publication series

NameSIGCOMM 2009 - Proceedings of the 2009 SIGCOMM Conference and Co-Located Workshops, VISA 2009

Other

Other1st Workshop on Virtualized Infrastructure Systems and Architectures, VISA 2009
Country/TerritorySpain
CityBarcelona
Period8/17/09 → …

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Computer Networks and Communications

Keywords

  • NetFPGA
  • Network virtualization

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