Rethinking Network Policy Coordination
Anduo Wang, Seungwon Shin, Eduard Dragut · 2019
Database usage in the context of networking has been focusing on managing factual data --- network state. But database systems are also renowned for mediating among semantic data --- data integrity constraints (ICs) that capture network policies. This paper asks if and how can database systems help with coordinating network policies in the semantically rich environment of SDN and BGP. We identify several problems --- disparate policies buried in the network that hinders rather than facilitates coordination; manual control flow orchestration of SDN policies that burdens the SDN programmer; and overlooked conflicts among interdomain routing policies that, though induced by multiple ASes, are only manifested within a single AS. Driven by these unique problems, we present a preliminary database solution that, using ICs as a unifying knowledge representation, employs automated reasoning to anticipate and to adjust the interplay between policies and the rest of the networking world.