Today’s network functions require keeping state at the granularity of each individual flow. Storing such state on network devices is highly challenging due to the complexity of the involved data structures. As such, the state is often stored on inefficient CPU-based servers as opposed to high-speed ASIC network switches. In our newly accepted CoNEXT paper, we demonstrate the possibility to perform tens of millions of low-latency flow state insertions on ASIC switches, showing our implementation achieves 75x memory requirements compared to existing probabilistic data structures in a common datacenter scenario. A PDF of the paper will soon be available. This was joint work between Mariano Scazzariello, Tommaso Caiazzi (from Roma Tre University), and Marco Chiesa.

Similarly to multi-core CPUs, also network devices increasingly rely on parallel packet processing engines to achieve insanely high throughput (up to 16 pipes to process 50 terabits per second on a single chip). In our recent paper accepted at ACM SIGMETRICS, we unveil, quantify, and mitigate the impact of deploying existing network monitoring mechanisms on multi-pipe network devices. Our design, called PipeCache, allows to reduce memory requirements (a constrained resource on ASIC devices) up to 16x! A PDF of the paper is available here. Code is available here.

Can one process the equivalent of 1 Tbps of traffic on a single server? In our NSDI’23 paper, we leverage disaggregation principles to push the boundary of what CPU-based packet processors can achieve in terms of throughput for a variety of network functions. For the paper PDF click here. This is a joint work with two visiting doctoral students from Roma tre University. All code is available here.

A video of Tommaso’s NSDI talk:

Congratulations to Alexandros for defending his licentiate thesis titled “Understanding the Capabilities of Route Collectors to Observe Stealthy Hijacks”! The supervisors are Marco Chiesa and Dejan Kostic. Thanks to the advanced reviewer Prof. Gerald Q. Maguire Jr., the special reviewer Prof. Alberto Dainotti, and the examiner Prof. Roberto Guanciale for their thorough work.

You can find more about Alexandros’ work by reading this thesis here.