CNS Core: Small: Efficient Interoperability Testing of Heterogeneous Network Protocol Implementations

人们对使用硬件来实现网络协议越来越感兴趣，例如在用于科学数据移动的超高速网络(例如，40Gbps、100Gbps)中。这主要是因为当前软件网络协议实现引起的处理器开销随着网络速度的增加而显著增加。然而，由于独特的硬件设计限制，同一网络协议的软件和硬件实现通常会有很大的差异。因此，测试不同网络协议实现之间的互操作性，以确保它们能够正确地交互是至关重要的。本项目提出了一类新的测试方法，以有效和系统地检验在两种类型的分组参数下的互操作性：分组动态参数(例如分组延迟和丢失率)和分组语义参数(例如分组字段的格式和含义)，因为不同的网络协议实现之间使用分组进行通信和交互。有三个研究推动力。第一个研究重点是使用报文动态参数进行互操作性测试，第二个研究重点是报文语义参数，第三个研究重点是混合参数，该项目将不仅提高网络的性能，还将提高网络的稳定性，特别是在硬件实现起关键作用的超高速网络中。该项目将惠及一大批超高速网络用户，例如经常需要在超高速网络上传输海量数据的科学用户。此外，这个项目中发现的研究问题与三个社区有关：网络、硬件和软件工程；这可能会刺激这三个社区之间更多可能的合作。项目文件、源代码和相关数据将在https://hinterop.github.io，网站上提供，该网站将在项目结束后至少保留三年。该奖项反映了美国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。

There has been an increasing interest in using hardware to implement network protocols, such as in ultra-high-speed networks (e.g., 40Gbps, 100Gbps) for scientific data movement. This is mainly because the processor overhead caused by the current software network protocol implementations increases considerably as the network speeds increase. However, there are usually big differences between software and hardware implementations for the same network protocol due to the unique hardware design constraints. Therefore, it is critical to test the interoperability between heterogeneous network protocol implementations to make sure that they can correctly interact with each other.This project proposes a new class of testing methods to efficiently and systematically check the interoperability of emerging heterogeneous network protocol implementations under two types of packet parameters: packet dynamic parameters (e.g., packet delay and loss), and packet semantics parameters (e.g., formats and meanings of packet fields), as different network protocol implementations communicate and interact with one another using packets. There are three research thrusts. The first research thrust focuses on interoperability testing with the packet dynamic parameters, the second focuses on the packet semantics parameters, and the third focuses on the mixed parameters.This project will improve not only the performance but also the stability of networks, especially ultra-high-speed networks where hardware implementations play critical roles. This project will benefit a large group of ultra-high-speed network users, such as scientific users who often need to move a huge amount of data over ultra-high-speed networks. In addition, the research problems identified in this project are related to three communities: networking, hardware, and software engineering; this may stimulate more possible collaborations among these three communities.The project documents, source code, and related data will be available on website https://hinterop.github.io, which will be maintained for at least three years after the end of the project.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.