Online Reprogrammable Multi Tenant Switches
Johannes Krude, Jaco A. Hofmann, Matthias Eichholz, Klaus Wehrle, Andreas Koch, Mira Mezini · 2019
Recent research shows many benefits for cloud workloads and network operations when putting software functionality onto switches. Sharing the physical resources of a programmable switch between multiple tenants and workloads enables the widespread deployment of on-switch software functionality. Currently, changing the program on a programmable switch incurs significant switch downtime, connectivity loss, and service interruption. We, therefore propose a modification to the common programmable switch architecture to enable hot-pluggability, the ability to insert, modify, and remove on-path software functionality without interrupting the network operation. With hot-pluggability, a programmable switch can be shared between applications of different on-switch lifetime and therefore also between different tenants. Such sharing requires performance and program isolation between different on-switch functions and tenants. Our proposal makes on-switch software functionality deployable within production networks and enables programmable switches to be offered as a service to multiple tenants within cloud and ISP networks.