The Case for a Flexible Low-Level Backend for Software Data Planes
Sean Choi, Xiang Long, Muhammad Mateen Shahbaz, Skip Booth, Andy Keep, John McClellan Marshall, Changhoon Kim · 2017
Recent efforts to simplify network data plane programming focus on providing simple, high-level domain-specific languages (DSLs). In the case of software switches, data plane programs are written in these DSLs and then compiled to run on CPU-based architecture. However, the simplicity of these DSLs, along with the lack of low-level interfaces exposed by the software switch, restrict compilers from generating optimal data plane programs for CPU-based architecture.