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Virtualizing the data plane through source code merging

Published: 22 August 2008 Publication History

Abstract

Virtualization is a key technology that enables multiple research groups to test new protocols simultaneously on the same physical network and also allows service providers to incrementally add new services. In this paper we focus on virtualization of the data plane, allowing for customized packet handling in each virtual network.
Much work has been done on virtualization technology. However, this has been focused on the user application experience or on a fixed networking stack. Rather than running custom data planes in user space or running separate guest operating systems, both of which come at a performance hit, we propose running a single kernel-level custom data-plane by synthesizing the configuration of the per-virtual-network data planes.
In this paper we present this idea using Click, where packet processing is specified as an interconnection of fixed networking tasks. We then demonstrate the idea using an unvirtualized Linux kernel as the target platform, showing how we provided isolation between the customized data plane.

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  • (2020)Building and Testing Modular Programs for Programmable Data PlanesIEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications10.1109/JSAC.2020.2986693(1-1)Online publication date: 2020
  • (2019)Network virtualization substrate with parallelized data planeComputer Communications10.1016/j.comcom.2010.07.02734:13(1549-1558)Online publication date: 4-Jan-2019
  • (2018)P4VisorProceedings of the 14th International Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies10.1145/3281411.3281436(98-111)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2018
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        cover image ACM Conferences
        PRESTO '08: Proceedings of the ACM workshop on Programmable routers for extensible services of tomorrow
        August 2008
        82 pages
        ISBN:9781605581811
        DOI:10.1145/1397718
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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        Publication History

        Published: 22 August 2008

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        Author Tags

        1. architecture
        2. routing
        3. virtual router
        4. virtualization

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        SIGCOMM '08
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        SIGCOMM '08: ACM SIGCOMM 2008 Conference
        August 22, 2008
        WA, Seattle, USA

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        Cited By

        View all
        • (2020)Building and Testing Modular Programs for Programmable Data PlanesIEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications10.1109/JSAC.2020.2986693(1-1)Online publication date: 2020
        • (2019)Network virtualization substrate with parallelized data planeComputer Communications10.1016/j.comcom.2010.07.02734:13(1549-1558)Online publication date: 4-Jan-2019
        • (2018)P4VisorProceedings of the 14th International Conference on emerging Networking EXperiments and Technologies10.1145/3281411.3281436(98-111)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2018
        • (2013)Reconfigurable Data Planes for Scalable Network VirtualizationIEEE Transactions on Computers10.1109/TC.2012.15562:12(2476-2488)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2013
        • (2013)Providing Isolation and Quality‐of‐Service to Virtual NetworksVirtual Networks10.1002/9781118576946.ch5(145-161)Online publication date: 9-Aug-2013
        • (2011)Data plane optimization in open virtual routersProceedings of the 10th international IFIP TC 6 conference on Networking - Volume Part I10.5555/2008780.2008818(379-392)Online publication date: 9-May-2011
        • (2011)Data Plane Optimization in Open Virtual RoutersNETWORKING 201110.1007/978-3-642-20757-0_30(379-392)Online publication date: 2011
        • (2010)Scalable network virtualization using FPGAsProceedings of the 18th annual ACM/SIGDA international symposium on Field programmable gate arrays10.1145/1723112.1723150(219-228)Online publication date: 21-Feb-2010
        • (2010)Towards a cost-effective networking testbedACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review10.1145/1713254.171326943:4(66-71)Online publication date: 27-Jan-2010
        • (2009)PdPProceedings of the 1st ACM workshop on Virtualized infrastructure systems and architectures10.1145/1592648.1592651(9-18)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2009
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