Evaluation of Underlying Switching Mechanism for Future Networks with P4 and SDN (Workshop Paper)

Abstract

Software Defined Networking (SDN) was introduced with a philosophy of decoupling the control plane from the data plane which facilitates network management while ensuring programmability in order to improve performance and monitoring. OpenFlow which enabled SDN was first introduced to match twelve header fields whilst at current it matches forty one which is expected to grow exponentially. Therefore future networks must have the ability to flexibly parse packets through a common interface. Programming Protocol independent Packet Processing (P4) was introduced to achieve the aforementioned by programming the underlying switch, providing instructions and utilizing APIs to populate the forwarding tables. A P4 programmed switch will forward packets through a parser into multiple stages of match+action tables to find the destination node which is considered the most efficient mechanism for routing. This paper takes into the account the latest platform developed for service providers, Open Networking Operating System (ONOS) to deploy two environments configured in the aforementioned technologies in order to test their performance. Four case studies were drawn which were simulated in Mininet which incorporated SDN + P4 switches. A significant increase of performances were recorded when compared with the the performance of cases using SDN only.

A Survey on P4 Challenges in Software Defined Networks: P4 Programming

“…Only a few firms produce P4 ASICs [60], and replacing a fixed-function device with a programmable device is more expensive than adding a traditional device to an existing network [61]. P4 specialists are also required to define the behavior of the programmable switches [62], and their integration of SDN and traditional networks remains a research challenge. To define the behavior of programmable switches, P4 specialists are also needed.…”