P4I/O: Intent-Based Networking with P4

Conference paper (2019)

Authors

F.A. Kuipers Embedded Systems - EEMCS
Research Group
Embedded Systems (EEMCS) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2019 M. Mohammad Riftadi, F.A. Kuipers
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/NETSOFT.2019.8806662
P4 Intent-based networking Self-driving networks
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Published Date

2019

Language

English

Reuse Rights

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Faculty

Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

Department

Software Technology

Research Group

Embedded Systems

Abstract

Switches that can be (re)programmed through the network programming language P4 are able to completely change – even while in the field – the way they process packets. While powerful, P4 code is inherently static, as it is written and installed to accommodate a particular network requirement. Writing new P4 code each time new requirements arise may be complex and limits our agility to deal with changes in network traffic and services.
In this paper, we present P4I/O, a new approach to data- plane programmability based on the philosophy of Intent-Based Networking. P4I/O provides an intent-driven interface that can be used to install and/or remove P4 programs on the switches when needed and which is easy to use. In particular, to realize P4I/O, we (1) describe an extensible Intent Definition Language (IDL), (2) create a repository of P4 code templates, which are parsed and merged based on the intents, (3) provide a technique to realize the resulting P4 program in a programmable switch, while accommodating intent modifications at any time, and finally (4) implement a proof-of-concept to demonstrate that intent modifications can be done on-the-fly.

Files

08806662.pdf
(.pdf | 0.388 Mb)
P4IO.pdf
(.pdf | 0.356 Mb)