NEAT: NEtwork dATa plane measurements as first class primitive

数据中心网络的装备很差，无法快速发现和解决故障，导致无数有据可查的应用程序性能下降或中断。这是因为调查过程是在集中式商品服务器（收集器）中执行的，这些服务器不具有每个数据包的可见性，而是从数据平面聚合和采样统计数据。NEAT项目将通过将流量分析直接转移到具有每个数据包可见性的交换机来解决这一缺陷。利用可编程硬件的进步，例如P4，NEAT将重新考虑数据平面操作，并将交换机从仅具有有限监控能力的数据包转发器转变为能够分析流量并仅导出相关结果的更智能的系统。这将实现所需的细粒度数据平面可见性水平，使运营商能够快速识别和适应网络条件的变化，这会损害应用程序。

Data centre networks are poorly equipped to rapidly spot and address failures, resulting in countless well-documented application performance degradation or outages. This is because the investigation process is performed in centralised commodity servers (collectors) that do not have per-packet visibility, but instead aggregated and sampled statistics from the data plane. The NEAT project will address this deficiency by moving traffic analysis directly into switches that have per-packet visibility. Exploiting advances in programmable hardware, e.g. P4, NEAT will rethink data plane operation and will transform switches from just packet forwarder with limited monitoring capabilities to more intelligent systems capable of analysing traffic and exporting only relevant results. This will enable the level of fine-grained data plane visibility required to allow operators to rapidly identify and adapt to changes in network conditions, which hurts applications.