In this paper we propose a novel hardware-software co-design vision that aims at enhancing flexibility and reusability of hardware based packet forwarding engines. In particular, we move on the path of the well-known OpenFlow architecture. However, although such approach is certainly powerful, it is biased towards routing-related applications: its main goal is to allow the software control plan...

In this paper we study the relationship between TCP packet loss cycle and performance of time-sensitive traffic in data centers. Using real measurements analysis, find that such cycles are not long enough to enable most partition-aggregate applications recover their losses via 3-dup ACKs mechanism. As a result, Timeout (RTO) mechanism is frequently triggered, leading expansion flow completion t...

Rate limiting is an important primitive for managing server network resources. Unfortunately, software-based rate limiting suffers from limited accuracy and high CPU overhead, and modern NICs only support a handful of rate limiters. We present SENIC, a NIC design that can natively support 10s of thousands of rate limiters—100x to 1000x the number available in NICs today. The key idea is that th...

We describe a new networking primitive, called a Path Verification Mechanism (PVM). There has been much recent work about how senders and receivers express policies about the paths that their packets take. For instance, users may want to choose providers whom they trust to be discreet, or a receiver may want traffic destined to it to travel through an intrusion detection service. While the abil...

As one of the fundamental infrastructures for cloud computing, data center networks (DCN) have recently been studied extensively. We currently use pure software-based systems, FPGA based platforms, e.g., NetFPGA, or OpenFlow switches, to implement and evaluate various DCN designs including topology design, control plane and routing, and congestion control. However, software-based approaches suf...

OpenFlow is a protocol that defines an open control channel towards the data plane of multiple switches from different vendors. This allows for a scalable implementation when running a large network. There has been growing interest in OpenFlow within the networking industry, with the promise of new versions and features added by the Open Networking Foundation (ONF). However, there is a lack of ...

Communication networks face nowadays a relentless increase in traffic load. Multi-Gb/s links are becoming widespread, and network devices are under a continuous stress, so testing whether they guarantee the specified throughput or delay is a must. Software-based solutions, such as the packet-train traffic injection, were adequate for lower speeds, but they have turned inaccurate in the current ...

We recently proposed Ethane: A clean-slate approach to managing and securing enterprise networks. The goal of Ethane is to make enterprise networks (e.g. networks in companies, universities, and home offices) much easier to manage. Ethane is built on the premise that the only way to manage and secure networks is to make sure we can identify the origin of all traffic, and hold someone (or some m...

The construction of data center network by applying SDN technology has become a hot research topic. The SDN architecture has innovatively separated the control plane from the data plane which makes the network more software-oriented and agile. Moreover, it provides virtual multi-tenancy, effective scheduling resources and centralized control strategies to meet the demand for cloud computing dat...