ONF Connect 2018

Today’s datacenter networks are built from a diverse set of devices that range from fully programmable CPUs and FPGAs, to programmable, network-optimized NPUs, to high-throughput programmable dataplane ASICs. But currently these devices have different capabilities and are programmed disjointly as independent entities, and this complicates the implementation and composition of more sophisticated in-network services.

As a solution, we introduce Flightplan, a framework that enables a cohesive approach to extend complex dataplane programs across heterogeneous hardware. Flightplan automatically splits a single program into a distributed system running on multiple interconnected dataplanes. It introduces a new, portable meta-programming construct to delimit dataplane subprograms and exploits automated code generation to simplify the writing and debugging of complex in-network services.
We implement a Flightplan prototype for P4 and illustrate it using a new suite of in-network functions that target diverse hardware. We show that Flightplan allows P4 programs to exploit heterogeneous programmable dataplanes to improve overall performance, while still retaining a simple and portable programming model.