Benjamin Steinert

Network management is complex and error-prone. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) aims to eliminate maintenance processes and to provide simple network management. This is done by allowing explicit and centralized control over the networking devices. Benefits of SDN over classical networking include programmability, centralized control, network flexibility, improved performance, easy implementation, efficient configuration, and enhanced management.

P4 is a domain-specific language for programming protocol-independent packet processors. With P4, the data plane functionality of forwarding devices such as routers and switches is not fixed, but can be specified programmatically. Custom headers and protocols can be declared in a P4 program together with a description of the forwarding behavior based on match+action tables. Thereby the P4 language is target-independent which means that a P4 program can be compiled for very different types of software and hardware, called P4 targets.

Network Functions (NFs) process network traffic and thereby provide functionality that is vital for today’s distributed networks. Examples are DPI, firewalls, load balancing or NATs. Packets traverse these functions in order to be monitored, analyzed, filtered, or processed otherwise. Traditionally, these NFs are supplied as hardware appliances that are manually set up by network operators. This involves manual configuration and wiring of the appliances. Network Function Virtualization aims to move the functionality from hardware appliances to software that can be run on COTS hardware.

The process of chaining virtual service functions requires the configuration, deployment, and interconnection of the respective network function instances. The resulting ordered set of service functions is called a service function chain. Research in Service Function Chaining (SFC) aims to automate the process of provisioning network services as virtual service function chains.