Abstract

Network virtualization allows many networks to share the same underlying physical topology; this technology has offeredpromisebothforexperimentationandforhostingmultiple networks on a single shared physical infrastructure. Muchattentionhasfocusedonvirtualizingthenetworkcontrolplane,but,ultimately,alimitingfactorinthedeployment of these virtualnetworksis data-planeperformance: 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, programmablenetworkhardwarepromisesflexibility,speed, andresourceisolation,but,unfortunately,hardwaredoesnot naturally lend itself to virtualization. We leverage emerging trends in programmable hardware to design a flexible, hardware-baseddata plane for virtual networks. We present the design, implementation, and preliminary evaluation of this hardware-baseddata plane and show how the proposed design can support many virtual networks without compromisingperformanceorisolation.

Citations