The following tutorials will be held on November 7, 2016:
P4: A Hands-on Introduction (1/2 day)
Monday, Nov. 7th, 8:30 am – 12:15 pm
P4 is a new declarative language to describe packet processing in software-defined networks (SDNs). The language extends the match-action dataflow developed in OpenFlow by allowing protocol processing in the dataplane to be specified programmatically. P4 offers developers and network operators several advantages. For applications such as NFV, the dataplane can grow to process new protocols, or change as the protocol mix changes according to the functions deployed. P4 can be used as a mechanism to fully specify the functionality of the dataplane. A single P4 codebase specifying the dataplane can be ported to multiple hardware platforms. Researchers have explored using P4 to enhance network functionality in a wide range of use cases including network telemetry, load balancing, consensus as a service and others. P4 is gradually being integrated into a many open source networking projects such as Open vSwitch, and OpenSwitch.
This tutorial will introduce attendees to developing and executing P4 code for a match-action dataflow-based dataplane. The focus of the tutorial will be hands-on labs in which attendees will develop and execute P4 programs on production hardware, Intelligent Server Adapters (ISAs) from Netronome. Attendees will learn how to develop, test and grow a networking datapath in P4. We will start with a simple NIC expressed entirely in P4, in Netronome ISAs. To implement architecture-specific functions or functions not supported in P4, developers can implement custom actions in a P4 match-action dataflow in C. The tutorial will conclude with labs for C-based actions for flow timestamping, flow tagging and virtual network function (VNF) support for NFV applications.
More information is available here.
Open Baton – The first comprehensive and standard compliant NFV Framework (1/2 day)
Monday, Nov. 7th, 1:30 pm – 5:15 pm
Open Baton is the first ETSI NFV MANO compliant framework and was part of the OpenSDNCore (www.opensdncore.org) project started almost three years ago by Fraunhofer FOKUS with the objective of providing a compliant implementation of the ETSI NFV specification. Open Baton is easily extensible. It integrates with OpenStack, and provides a plugin mechanism for supporting additional VIM types. It supports Network Service management either using a generic VNFM or interoperating with VNF-specific VNFM. It uses different mechanisms (REST or PUB/SUB) for interoperating with the VNFMs. It integrates with additional components for the runtime management of a Network Service. For instance, it provides autoscaling and fault management based on monitoring information coming from the the monitoring system available at the NFVI level.
This half a day workshop will provide a comprehensive mirror of the current status of the NFV ecosystem mainly focusing on the Management and Orchestration (MANO) domain. During the proposed tutorial it will be outlined the open technology ecosystem currently available in the context of SDN and NFV. Particular attention will be given to the new open source toolkit Open Baton recently launched by Fraunhofer FOKUS and TU Berlin. First a general overview of this project will be given, and it will be shown how to create a virtualized Network Service in few steps. Later sections will go into the detail in order to show the simplified way to make use of the plugin mechanism that allows you to integrate the cloud environment (e.g. OpenStack) and monitoring system (e.g. Zabbix) of your choice. Moreover, it will be shown how you can develop your own VNF Manager that might be in charge of managing the whole lifecycle of your simple or complex Network Function. Additionally, it will be shown how new and recently published components, such as the Fault Management System or the AutoScaling Engine, can be/are integrated into the Open Baton Framework by using the powerful event mechanism and several tools enabling the communication between the NFVO and your own external component.
More details are available here.
NFV & Data Plane Optimizations – Tools and Tips (full day)
Monday, Nov. 7th, 8:30 am – 5:15 pm
This tutorial will dive into the problem of fast packet processing on standard x86 based servers and the current state of the art using software and hardware acceleration capabilities. The session will start with the basic motivation and design of Data Plane Development Kit (a.k.a. DPDK) and how it accelerates SDN/NFV components such as FD.io, Open vSwith (OVS), BESS, and integrates with hardware solutions, for example SR-IOV. Hands on sessions follow the overview and introduction and focus on Open vSwitch with DPDK and SR-IOV to achieve near bare metal performance. The tutorial ends with tips and techniques for performance optimization on modern multi core CPUs with some performance benchmark measurements.
More details are available here.