research-article

Concurrent NetCore: from policies to pipelines

Authors:

Cole Schlesinger,

Michael Greenberg,

David WalkerAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 49, Issue 9

Pages 11 - 24

https://doi.org/10.1145/2692915.2628157

Published: 19 August 2014 Publication History

Abstract

In a Software-Defined Network (SDN), a central, computationally powerful controller manages a set of distributed, computationally simple switches. The controller computes a policy describing how each switch should route packets and populates packet-processing tables on each switch with rules to enact the routing policy. As network conditions change, the controller continues to add and remove rules from switches to adjust the policy as needed.

Recently, the SDN landscape has begun to change as several proposals for new, reconfigurable switching architectures, such as RMT [5] and FlexPipe [14] have emerged. These platforms provide switch programmers with many, flexible tables for storing packet-processing rules, and they offer programmers control over the packet fields that each table can analyze and act on. These reconfigurable switch architectures support a richer SDN model in which a switch configuration phase precedes the rule population phase [4]. In the configuration phase, the controller sends the switch a graph describing the layout and capabilities of the packet processing tables it will require during the population phase. Armed with this foreknowledge, the switch can allocate its hardware (or software) resources more efficiently.

We present a new, typed language, called Concurrent NetCore, for specifying routing policies and graphs of packet-processing tables. Concurrent NetCore includes features for specifying sequential, conditional and concurrent control-flow between packet-processing tables. We develop a fine-grained operational model for the language and prove this model coincides with a higher-level denotational model when programs are well-typed. We also prove several additional properties of well-typed programs, including strong normalization and determinism. To illustrate the utility of the language, we develop linguistic models of both the RMT and FlexPipe architectures and we give a multi-pass compilation algorithm that translates graphs and routing policies to the RMT model.

References

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Cited By

Greenberg MBeckett RCampbell EJhala RDillig I(2022)Kleene algebra modulo theories: a framework for concrete KATsProceedings of the 43rd ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3519939.3523722(594-608)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3519939.3523722
Loehr DWalker D(2022)Safe, modular packet pipeline programmingProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34986996:POPL(1-28)Online publication date: 12-Jan-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3498699
Li MWang XTong HLiu TTian Y(2019)SPARC: Towards a Scalable Distributed Control Plane Architecture for Protocol-Oblivious SDN Networks2019 28th International Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN)10.1109/ICCCN.2019.8846931(1-9)Online publication date: Jul-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCCN.2019.8846931
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Concurrent NetCore: from policies to pipelines
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software notations and tools
    1. Context specific languages
      1. Specialized application languages

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM SIGPLAN Notices

ACM SIGPLAN Notices Volume 49, Issue 9

ICFP '14

September 2014

361 pages

ISSN:0362-1340

EISSN:1558-1160

DOI:10.1145/2692915

Editors:
Mark W. Bailey
Hamilton College, Clinton, NY
,
Rajeev Balasubramonian
University of Utah
,
Al Davis
University of Utah
,
Sarita Adve
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champ

Issue’s Table of Contents

ICFP '14: Proceedings of the 19th ACM SIGPLAN international conference on Functional programming
August 2014
390 pages
ISBN:9781450328739
DOI:10.1145/2628136
General Chair:
Johan Jeuring
Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands
,
Program Chair:
Manuel M.T. Chakravarty
University of New South Wales, Australia

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 19 August 2014

Published in SIGPLAN Volume 49, Issue 9

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Citations

Cited By

Greenberg MBeckett RCampbell EJhala RDillig I(2022)Kleene algebra modulo theories: a framework for concrete KATsProceedings of the 43rd ACM SIGPLAN International Conference on Programming Language Design and Implementation10.1145/3519939.3523722(594-608)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3519939.3523722
Loehr DWalker D(2022)Safe, modular packet pipeline programmingProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/34986996:POPL(1-28)Online publication date: 12-Jan-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3498699
Li MWang XTong HLiu TTian Y(2019)SPARC: Towards a Scalable Distributed Control Plane Architecture for Protocol-Oblivious SDN Networks2019 28th International Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN)10.1109/ICCCN.2019.8846931(1-9)Online publication date: Jul-2019
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCCN.2019.8846931
Geissler SHerrnleben SBauer RGebert SZinner TJarschel M(2017)Tablevisor 2.0: Towards full-featured, scalable and hardware-independent multi table processing2017 IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft)10.1109/NETSOFT.2017.8004108(1-8)Online publication date: Jul-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/NETSOFT.2017.8004108
Trois CDel Fabro Mde Bona LMartinello M(2016)A Survey on SDN Programming LanguagesIEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials10.1109/COMST.2016.255377818:4(2687-2712)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/COMST.2016.2553778
Alsmadi IZarour M(2016)Empirical Evidences in Software-Defined Network Security: A Systematic Literature ReviewInformation Fusion for Cyber-Security Analytics10.1007/978-3-319-44257-0_11(253-295)Online publication date: 22-Oct-2016
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44257-0_11
Feng HBonsangue MHong JPark J(2024)Concurrent NetKAT with PortsProceedings of the 39th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing10.1145/3605098.3636048(1722-1730)Online publication date: 8-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3605098.3636048
Liatifis ASarigiannidis PArgyriou VLagkas T(2023)Advancing SDN from OpenFlow to P4: A SurveyACM Computing Surveys10.1145/355697355:9(1-37)Online publication date: 16-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3556973
Wagemaker JFoster NKappé TKozen DRot JSilva A(2022)Concurrent NetKATProgramming Languages and Systems10.1007/978-3-030-99336-8_21(575-602)Online publication date: 29-Mar-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-99336-8_21
Kang QXue LMorrison ATang YChen ALuo XCapkun SRoesner F(2020)Programmable in-network security for context-aware BYOD policiesProceedings of the 29th USENIX Conference on Security Symposium10.5555/3489212.3489246(595-612)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.5555/3489212.3489246
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