NeTS: Small: The Design and Implementation of a Consolidated MiddleBox Architecture

专门的网络设备或“中间盒”是昂贵的封闭系统，很少或没有扩展挂钩；它们带有自定义管理api，并作为独立设备部署，在如何管理中间件集成方面几乎没有内聚性。这些缺点使得网络基础设施的设备不断扩张，资本和管理成本也不断上升。本研究介绍了一种构建和管理中间件基础设施的新方法。该研究开发了一种中间盒架构，以软件为中心的中间盒应用程序在一个共享的硬件平台上整合运行，由一个统一的控制器管理，而不是专门的和独立的盒子。这种方法提供了可扩展性（因为新应用程序部署在现有硬件上并集成到统一的管理体系结构中）和效率（由于硬件和管理开销的分摊）。更广泛的影响：现代社会对网络系统日益增长的依赖令人震惊。然而，这种增长来之不易。今天的网络是高度复杂的系统，中间盒是这种复杂性的重要贡献者；即使是构建和运行网络的专家也难以管理和诊断网络的运行。与网络的可管理性和演进相关的螺旋式上升的成本影响了网络行业，并最终影响了依赖它们的更广泛的社会。本研究旨在通过一种更简单、统一的中间盒基础设施设计来改善这一轨迹。

Specialized network appliances or "middleboxes" are expensive and closed systems with little/no hooks for extension; they come with custom management APIs and are deployed as standalone devices with little cohesiveness in how the ensemble of middleboxes is managed. These drawbacks put network infrastructure on a trajectory of growing device sprawl with mounting capital and management costs. This research introduces a new approach to building and managing middlebox infrastructure. Instead of an ad-hoc clutter of specialized and standalone boxes, the research develops a middlebox architecture in which software-centric middlebox applications run consolidated on a shared hardware platform, managed by a single, unified controller. This approach offers extensibility (since new applications are deployed on existing hardware and integrated into a unified management architecture) and yet efficiency (due to amortization of both hardware and management overheads).Broader Impact: Modern society's growing reliance on networked systems has been astounding. This growth has not come easily however. Today's networks are highly complex systems and middleboxes are a significant contributor to this complexity; even the experts that build and run networks struggle to manage and diagnose their operation. Spiraling costs related to the manageability and evolution of networks impacts the networking industry and hence eventually the broader society that relies on them. This research aims to ameliorate this trajectory through a simpler, unified design for middlebox infrastructure.