CAREER: A Runtime Framework for Network Function Virtualization

互联网已经改变了全球的日常生活。然而，尽管使用互联网的应用程序不断演变，但基础互联网本身并不是这样。相反，事实证明，互联网的核心服务提供极难改变，事实上，自20世纪80年代以来基本保持不变。这是有问题的，因为它影响到拥有和运营网络基础设施的网络运营商公司：他们网络中的任何升级或更改都是一个极其困难和昂贵的过程，导致部分和临时修复，并不断上升的管理成本。实现变革的困难还意味着，网络运营商探索新服务和商业模式的能力受到了抑制。简而言之：互联网的长期健康取决于运营其基础设施的运营商的健康状况，但这些运营商越来越多地受到不断上涨的成本和收入持平的挤压。这一轨迹现在被广泛认为是不可持续的。该项目正在进行的研究通过使高效的软件流量处理成为网络基础设施的基本组件来提供一种摆脱这种束缚的方法。传统上，网络基础设施是由专门的固定功能硬件构建的，这种硬件发展缓慢且成本高昂。用在商用通用硬件上运行的软件功能来增强这一基础设施，将使运营商能够更轻松、更廉价地发展其现有服务，并探索创新的新服务模式。换句话说，该项目的研究将允许网络功能在(更快的)软件而不是(更慢的)硬件开发时间范围内发展。如今，将先进的流量处理功能整合到网络中的事实上的方法是通过部署专门的“中间盒”。这些中间盒已发展成为现代网络的重要组成部分，但也被广泛认为带来了成本高、灵活性差和管理复杂等重大问题。最近，软件包处理和虚拟化技术的进步促使行业和研究探索另一种方法：将中间盒功能从专用设备转移到在商用x86处理器上多路复用运行的软件应用程序。这种被称为网络功能虚拟化(NFV)的方法将重塑网络基础设施，并为网络带来云计算的好处。然而，云计算(尤其是数据分析)的发展极大地得益于框架的存在，这些框架实现了与应用程序无关的弹性扩展、放置和故障转移方法，实现了高效率，同时减轻了程序员的这些负担。NFV没有这样的一般管理解决方案。本项目研究议程的中心前提是NFV需要一个框架，我们所说的框架是指一个用于数据包处理应用的软件环境，该环境实现了通用功能的通用技术。该项目解决了在软件中处理网络流量时出现的基本问题。它为基于软件的网络功能的扩展、性能管理和容错等常见问题提供了通用而有效的解决方案。此外，通过展示如何将这些解决方案嵌入到通用框架中，研究实现了更快的创新：第三方供应商可以更轻松地开发与应用程序相关的新功能，因为他们不再需要处理目前由该框架处理的常见但棘手的可用性/可扩展性/效率问题。广泛影响：该项目有助于实现更广泛的目标，即确保互联网继续作为为全球人口带来变革性通信服务的工具。该项目的教育部分通过一门新的本科课程解决了网络系统中课程作业和实践之间日益扩大的鸿沟，该课程使用上述NFV框架让学生接触到现代网络软件，并在构建和部署创新网络服务方面提供深入的经验。该项目还在探索实验室方法，将这种以项目为中心的课程扩展到100多名学生。外联活动包括与网络供应商和运营商合作创建一个开源项目，并指导本科生和代表性不足的学生。为此，PI建立在与业界合作影响实践的良好记录以及建立多样化研究小组的非凡记录的基础上。

The Internet has transformed everyday life across the globe. However, while there has been constant evolution in the applications that use the Internet, the same is not true of the underlying Internet itself. Instead, the Internet's core service offering has proven tremendously difficult to change and, in fact, has remained largely unchanged since the 1980s. This is problematic because of its impact on the network 'carrier' companies that own and operate the network infrastructure: any upgrade or change in their networks is a tremendously difficult and expensive process, leading to partial and ad-hoc fixes and escalating management costs. The difficulty of effecting change also means that network carriers have been stifled in their ability to explore new services and business models. In short: the long term health of the Internet depends on the health of the carriers that operate its underlying infrastructure, but these carriers are increasingly squeezed between mounting costs and flat revenues. This trajectory is now widely recognized as unsustainable.The research being undertaken in this project offers a way out of this bind by making efficient software traffic processing a fundamental component of the network infrastructure. Traditionally, network infrastructure has been built from specialized fixed-function hardware which is slow and expensive to evolve. Augmenting this infrastructure with software functions that run on commodity general-purpose hardware, will allow carriers to more easily and cheaply evolve their existing services, as well as to explore innovative new service models. In other words, this project's research will allow network functionality to evolve on (faster) software rather than (slower) hardware development timescales.Today, the de-facto approach to incorporating advanced traffic-processing functionality into a network is through the deployment of specialized 'middleboxes'. These middleboxes have grown to be a vital part of modern networks but are also widely recognized as bringing with them significant problems including high cost, inflexibility, and complex management. Recently, advances in software packet processing and virtualization technologies has led industry and research to explore an alternate approach: moving middle- box functionality out of dedicated boxes into software applications that run multiplexed on commodity x86 processors. This approach - termed Network Function Virtualization (NFV) - stands to reshape network infrastructure and bring the benefits of cloud computing to networks. However, the evolution of cloud computing (particularly for data analytics) has greatly benefited from the existence of frameworks that implement application-independent methods for elastic scaling, placement and failover, achieving high efficiency while relieving programmers of these burdens. NFV has no such general management solutions. The central premise of the research agenda being undertaken in this project is that NFV needs a framework, by which we mean a software environment for packet-processing applications that implements general techniques for common functions.The project addresses fundamental questions that arise when processing network traffic in software. It provides general and effective solutions to the common problems of scaling, performance management, and fault-tolerance for software-based network functions. Moreover, by showing how these solutions can be embedded in a common framework, the research enables faster innovation: third-party vendors can more easily develop new application-relevant functions since they no longer have to deal with the common but thorny issues of availability/scalability/efficiency which are now handled by the framework.Broader Impact: The project contributes to the broader goal of ensuring that the Internet continues to serve as the vehicle bringing transformative communication services to the global population. The project's educational component addresses the growing divide between coursework and practice in networked systems through a new undergraduate course that uses the above NFV framework to expose students to modern network software and provide in-depth experience in building and deploying innovative network services. The project is also exploring lab methodologies to scale such project-centric classes to 100+ students. Outreach activities include the creation of an open-source effort in collaboration with network vendors and carriers, and mentoring undergraduates and under-represented students. For this, the PI builds on a strong record of working with industry to impact practice and an exceptional record of building a diverse research group.