Network Virtual Machine (NetVM): A New Architecture for Efficient and Portable Packet Processing Applications

A challenge facing network device designers, besides increasing the speed of network gear, is improving its programmability in order to simplify the implementation of new applications (see for example, active networks, content networking, etc). This paper presents our work on designing and implementing a virtual network processor, called NetVM, which has an instruction set optimized for packet processing applications, i.e., for handling network traffic. Similarly to a Java Virtual Machine that virtualizes a CPU, a NetVM virtualizes a network processor. The NetVM is expected to provide a compatibility layer for networking tasks (e.g., packet filtering, packet counting, string matching) performed by various packet processing applications (firewalls, network monitors, intrusion detectors) so that they can be executed on any network device, ranging from expensive routers to small appliances (e.g. smart phones). Moreover, the NetVM will provide efficient mapping of the elementary functionalities used to realize the above mentioned networking tasks upon specific hardware functional units (e.g., ASICs, FPGAs, and network processing elements) included in special purpose hardware systems possibly deployed to implement network devices

Comparative Evaluation of Packet Classification Algorithms for Implementation on Resource Constrained Systems

This paper provides a comparative evaluation of a number of known classification algorithms that have been considered for both software and hardware implementation. Differently from other sources, the comparison has been carried out on implementations based on the same principles and design choices. Performance measurements are obtained by feeding the implemented classifiers with various traffic traces in the same test scenario. The comparison also takes into account implementation feasibility of the considered algorithms in resource constrained systems (e.g. embedded processors on special purpose network platforms). In particular, the comparison focuses on achieving a good compromise between performance, memory usage, flexibility and code portability to different target platforms

Time Driven Priority Router Implementation and First Experiments

This paper reports on the implementation of Time-Driven Priority (TDP) scheduling on a FreeBSD platform. This work is part of a TDP prototyping and demonstration project aimed at showing the implications of TDP deployment in packet-switched networks, especially benefits for real-time applications. This paper focuses on practical aspects related to the implementation of the technology on a Personal Computer (PC)-based router and presents the experimental results obtained on a testbed network. The basic building blocks of a TDP router are described and implementation choices are discussed. The relevant results achieved and here presented can be categorized into two types: qualitative results, including the successful integration of all needed blocks and the insight obtained on the complexity related to the implementation of a TDP router, and quantitative ones, including measures of achievable network utilization and of jitter experienced on a fully-loaded TDP network. The outcome demonstrates the effectiveness of the presented implementation while confirming TDP points of strengt

Vehicle Navigation Service Based on Real-Time Traffic Information

GNSS-assisted vehicle navigation services are nowadays very common in most of the developed countries. However, most of those services are either delivered through proprietary technologies, or fall short in flexibility because of the limited capability to couple road information with real-time traffic information. This paper presents the motivations and a brief summary of a vehicle navigation service based on real-time traffic information, delivered through an open protocol that is currently under standardization in the Open Mobile Alliance forum

A symbolic simulator for hybrid equations.

In this paper, the symbolic simulation of hybrid dynamical systems is studied and an algorithm to compute symbolic solutions for such systems is presented. The tasks to perform such simulations are introduced and an algorithm to symbolically calculate a solution to a hybrid system is presented. The symbolic representation allows the proposed simulator to calculate the actual solution to the system. Benefits and drawbacks of symbolic simulation with respect to the numerical approach are presented. These statements are supported and illustrated in several examples throughout the paper

Sound emission on bubble coalescence: imaging, acoustic and numerical experim

Laboratory and numerical experiments are presented on the emission of sound on bubble coalescence. The aim was to better understand the fluid-dynamical mechanisms leading to sound emission. Bubbles were formed from a needle. Coordinated high-speed video and acoustic measurements demonstrated that the emission of high-amplitude sound coincided with the coalescence of a primary bubble with a smaller secondary. A numerical simulation was performed using a compressible level-set front-capturing code, in which a compressible gas and nearly compressible liquid are modelled by a single set of the Navier-Stokes equations with a generic equation of state for both phases. In the simulations, the spherical primary and secondary bubbles initially at acoustic equilibrium were brought into contact. The numerical calculations predicted the frequency of emitted sound and the bubble coalescence dynamics very well. The results suggest that the equalization of Laplace pressures could be the mechanism leading to sound emission

Enabling Scalable SFCs in Kubernetes with eBPF-based Cross-Connections

Service Function Chains (SFCs) are composed of an ordered set of Network Functions (NFs) that provide network services to the handled traffic. However, traffic is highly variable over time, thus telco operators need to deploy scalable chains that can quickly and easily adapt to the load fluctuations. Although Kubernetes has already brought benefits in terms of increased scalability and flexibility to general-purpose applications, it is not natively suitable for network workloads since it lacks some functionalities required by network services. This paper presents a simple, cloud-native architecture that integrates SFCs in Kubernetes, with the aim of seamlessly leveraging cloud-native features such as horizontal autoscaling. The solution is based on flexible cross-connections, namely logical links that connect adjacent network functions, which can promptly adapt the distribution of the network traffic to the existing network functions in case of scale in/out events affecting the number of NF instances. The architecture has been validated with an open-source proof-of-concept implementation based on dedicated Kubernetes operators and an eBPF load balancer, demonstrating the feasibility and the efficiency of the proposed approach