Active network middleware with opennetVM
Timothy Wood · 2017
Communication Networks are no longer just pipes that move data from place to place. They are becoming powerful, software-based infrastructures capable of transforming and inspecting data as it moves between hosts. Two trends reflect this: the use of Software Defined Networks (SDN) to dynamically manage the network control plane (i.e., routing), and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) to provide a high-performance network data plane (e.g., middleboxes - services like firewalls, proxies, etc.). NFV promises to enable a vast array of in-network software functions running efficiently in virtualized environments. This is a paradigm shift from traditional networks that relied on purpose-built, costly and inflexible hardware middleboxes. To accelerate research and development of network middleware, we have developed OpenNetVM, an open-source (BSD license) software infrastructure for high speed packet processing.