By offering the possibility to already perform processing as packets traverse the network, programmable data planes open up new perspectives for applications suffering from strict latency and high bandwidth requirements. Real-time Computer Vision (CV), with its high data rates and often mission-and safety-critical roles in the control of autonomous vehicles and industrial machinery, could particularly benefit from executing parts of its logic within network elements.In this paper, we thus explore what it takes to bring CV to the network. We present our work-in-progress efforts of implementing a line-following algorithm based on convolution filters on a P4-programmable NIC. We find that by appropriately identifying regions of interest in the image data and by diligently distributing the necessary calculations among the various match/action stages of the ingress-and egress pipelines of the NIC, our prototypical implementation can achieve over 19 decisions per second on 640x480 px grayscale images with filters large enough to guide a small autonomous car through various courses. CCS CONCEPTS• Networks → In-network processing; Middle boxes / network appliances; Programmable networks; • Computing methodologies → Computer vision;

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Recent research shows many bene ts 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 signi cant switch downtime, connectivity loss, and service interruption. We, therefore propose a modi cation 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 di erent on-switch lifetime and therefore also between di erent tenants. Such sharing requires performance and program isolation between di erent on-switch functions and tenants. Our proposal makes on-switch software functionality deployable within production networks and enables programmable switches to be o ered as a service to multiple tenants within cloud and ISP networks. CCS CONCEPTS• Networks → Programmable networks; In-network processing; • Hardware → Networking hardware; • Security and privacy → Systems security.

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