Stratum as a NOS enables the full power of P4-programmable switches, through a set of next-generation SDN APIs. The P4Runtime API not only enables protocol-independent flow-programming, it also supports re-configuring the dataplane by pushing a new P4 program to the switch. In this talk we describe how this feature is implemented in systems based on the Barefoot Tofino ASIC and how it can be used to change the "role" of the switch in the network, without having to reboot the switch or even restart any local process. This can be leveraged to simplify deployments and facilitate the sofware upgrade process. The P4 dataplane can also be customized dynamically to balance the amount of supported features with the desire to optimize for latency, power and flow table sizes. We propose to show with a live demo how this re-configuration can be performed by a SDN controller talking to a Tofino-based switch running Stratum, with minimum traffic disruption (< 50ms of packet loss).
Antonin Bas is a SW engineer with Barefoot Networks, where he works on runtime APIs for programmable ASICs and in-network computing. He is co-chairing the P4.org API Working Group.
Tuesday December 4, 2018 3:00pm - 3:30pm PST
Salon 1-2
