Abstract:
With their increasingly sophisticated applications,
users propel the notion that there is more to a network (be it an intranet,
or the Internet) than mere L1-3 connectivity. In what shapes
as a next generation service contract between users and the network,
users want the network to erogate services that are as ubiquitous
and dependable as dialtones. Typical services include appplication-
aware firewalls, directories, nomadic support, virtualization,
load balancing, alternate site failover, etc. To fulfill this vision, a
service architecture is needed. That is, an architecture wherein
end-to-end services compose, on-demand, across network domains,
technologies, and administration boundaries. Such an architecture
requires programmable mechanisms and programmable network
devices for service enabling, service negotiation, and service management.
The bedrock foundation of the architecture, and also the
key focus of the paper, is an open-source programmable service
platformthat is explicitly designed to best exploit commercial-grade
network devices. The platform predicates a full separation of concerns,
in that control-intensive operations are executed in software,
whereas, data-intensive operations are delegated to hardware.
This way, the platform is capable of performing wire-speed
content filtering, and activating network services according to the
state of data and control flows. The paper describes the platform
and some distinguishing services realized on the platform.
