CSR: Small: Enabling In-Network Computation for Datacenter Applications

可编程网络设备（如可重新配置的交换机和可定制的网络加速器）的出现，以及数据中心日益增长的流量，激发了网络内计算的使用。当今最新的可重构交换机支持可配置的逐包处理，包括可定制的包头、可定制的包处理，以及在交换机内部保持状态的能力。考虑到这种硬件趋势，该项目寻求将计算操作卸载到中间网络设备上，用于从分布式存储到大数据分析和分布式机器学习的广泛应用服务，从而优化数据中心应用程序的操作。该项目的主要目标是构建一个编程框架，以便使用可编程网络硬件实现网络内计算。在设计和实施该框架时，该项目解决了以下研究问题：首先，该项目解决了如何最好地将可重构交换机和网络加速器集成到数据中心网络中，因为它们在可执行的操作方面都有限制。其次，一个关键的项目目标是为这些可编程设备确定一个简单但功能强大的编程应用程序编程接口（API），以支持广泛的应用程序类别。第三，要解决的另一个关键挑战是如何使这些设备上的状态和计算与应用服务器的状态和计算保持一致，以及如何协同设计数据中心应用程序以利用这种范式所带来的性能优势。该项目旨在提高网络密集型数据中心应用程序的效率，这些应用程序每天被全球数十亿人使用。通过提高它们的效率，可以大大降低数据中心服务的成本，并使开发新的公共服务的成本大大降低。在这项工作中，各种交换机供应商的合作者是平等的合作伙伴，提供获得新技术的途径，并协助向行业转移技术。该项目将整合本科生作为研究人员，项目材料将纳入本科和研究生课程。一个关键的项目目标是公开发布开发的软件，并启用一组丰富的高性能数据中心应用程序。所有的软件一经开发就会公开，通过GitHub（网址：https://github.com/arvindkrish/incbricks）托管，并可从华盛顿大学的项目网站访问。该存储库的镜像版本将在大学中维护至少五年。

The emergence of programmable network devices, such as reconfigurable switches and customizable network accelerators, along with the increasing traffic of data centers, motivate the use of in-network computation. Today's latest reconfigurable switches support configurable per-packet processing, including customizable packet headers, customizable packet processing, and the ability to maintain state inside the switch. Given this hardware trend, this project seeks to offload computing operations onto intermediate networking devices for a broad range of application services ranging from distributed storage to big data analytics and distributed machine learning, thus optimizing the operations of data center applications. The project's primary goal is to build a programming framework to enable in-network computing using programmable networking hardware. In designing and implementing this framework, the project addresses the following research questions: First, the project tackles how to best integrate reconfigurable switches and network accelerators into a data center network, as they both have limitations in terms of the operations that they can execute. Second, a key project goal is to identify what is a simple and yet powerful programming application program interface (API) for these programmable devices to support a broad class of applications. Third, another key challenge addressed is how to keep state and computations on these devices consistent with that of application servers, and how to co-design data center applications to take advantage of the performance benefits enabled by this paradigm. This project seeks to improve the efficiency of network-intensive data center applications that are used by literally billions of people around the globe on a daily basis. By improving their efficiency, one can dramatically reduce the cost of data center services as well as make it much cheaper for new public services to be developed. Collaborators at various switch vendors are equal partners in this effort, providing access to new technologies as well as assisting in technology transfer to the industry. The project will integrate undergraduate students as researchers, and material from the project will be incorporated into both undergraduate and graduate courses.A key project goal is to publicly release developed software and enable a rich set of high-performance data center applications. All software will be made public as soon as they are developed, hosted via GitHub at https://github.com/arvindkrish/incbricks and accessible from the project website at the University of Washington. A mirrored version of this repository will be maintained at the University for at least five years.