The “platform as a service” model for networking

Decoupling infrastructure management from service management can lead to innovation, new business models, and a reduction in the complexity of running services. It is happening in the world of computing, and is poised to happen in networking. While many have considered this in the context of network virtualization, they all focus on one model - overlaying a virtual network of multiple virtual routers on top of a shared physical infrastructure, each completely isolated from the others through the use of virtualization. In this paper we argue for a different approach, where those running the service are presented with the abstraction of a single router in order to enable them to focus solely on their service rather than worrying about managing a virtual network as well. We discuss the abstraction of a single router, and the challenges of mapping the collection of abstract routers (from different parties) to the distributed and shared physical infrastructure.