CNS Core: Small: Collaborative: Salvaging Commodity Operating Systems toSupport Emerging Networking Technologies

随着两个主要进步，网络格局发生了巨大变化：(1)快速的硬件导致了高速、高带宽的计算机网络；(2)新的网络体系结构，如软件定义的网络，已经产生了一种灵活的方式来操作网络服务。不幸的是，传统的系统软件，如商用操作系统，在有效支持这种高速网络和新的网络架构方面面临着严峻的挑战。该项目将对商用操作系统中的网络软件栈进行全面的研究，以找出关键的瓶颈，提出新的解决方案来解决这些瓶颈，并最终使用真实的原型实现来验证所提出的解决方案。具体来说，该项目需要三个研究推力：首先，为了最大限度地提高包级并行性，它将开发一种压力测试方法来定位串行化瓶颈，并设计一个高效的流水线过程来实现虚拟网络中的包处理并行化。其次，为了提高小包的单包处理效率，将开发一种多层次的包合并方法，包括硬件中断合并、软件中断合并和无损包合并。第三，为了在并行性和数据局部性之间取得良好的平衡，将设计一种整体调度算法，对虚拟化网络功能的内核内中断和用户级线程进行优化复用，所获得的知识将有助于提高商用操作系统的网络性能关键方面，从而使运行在这些系统上的所有系统和应用程序受益。该项目的研究成果将对生产网络系统的设计和实施产生影响，并将纳入计算机科学核心课程。该项目将为本科生、研究生和代表性不足群体的学生提供培训。该项目主要生成四种类型的数据，包括原型实现、软件工具基准、详细的经验评估报告和课程材料。这些数据将在项目执行期间和项目结束日期后至少三年内保存在项目网站上：http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~huilu/projects/CNets.This奖反映了国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The networking landscape has changed dramatically along with two main advances: (1) fast hardware has led to high-speed, high-bandwidth computer networks; (2) new networking architectures, such as software-defined networking, have given rise to a flexible way to operate networking services. Unfortunately, traditional systems software, such as commodity operating systems, faces critical challenges to efficiently support such high-speed networks and new networking architectures. This project will conduct a holistic study of network software stacks in commodity operating systems to identify critical bottlenecks, propose new solutions to address these bottlenecks, and finally validate the proposed solutions using real prototype implementations.Specifically, the project entails three research thrusts: First, to maximize packet-level parallelism, it will develop a stress-testing approach to locate the serialization bottleneck and design a highly efficient pipelining process to parallelize packet processing in virtualized networks. Second, to improve per-packet processing efficiency for small packets, it will develop a multi-level packet coalescing approach, including hardware interrupt coalescing, software interrupt coalescing, and lossless packet coalescing. Third, to strike a good balance between parallelism and data locality, it will design a holistic scheduling algorithm to optimally multiplex in-kernel interrupts and user-level threads for virtualized network functions.The knowledge developed in this project will help to improve the key aspects of network performance in commodity operating systems, thus benefiting all systems and applications running on these systems. The research outcomes from this project will have influence on the design and implementation of production networking systems and be integrated into core computer science courses. This project will provide training to undergraduate students, graduate students, and students from underrepresented groups.The project mainly generates four types of data including prototype implementations, software instrumentation benchmarks, detailed reports of empirical evaluations, and curriculum materials. These data will be maintained on the project website during the execution of the project and for a minimum of three years after the project's ending date: http://www.cs.binghamton.edu/~huilu/projects/CNets.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.