P4KP: QoS-Aware Top-K Best Path Using Programmable Switch
Data center networks offer multiple parallel paths between a source-destination pair. But, due to the use of TCAM based single logical step <italic>‘path-search and selection’</italic> mechanism in the switches, most of the existing packet forwarding systems can uti...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IEEE
2021-01-01
|
| Series: | IEEE Access |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9502607/ |
| Summary: | Data center networks offer multiple parallel paths between a source-destination pair. But, due to the use of TCAM based single logical step <italic>‘path-search and selection’</italic> mechanism in the switches, most of the existing packet forwarding systems can utilize only a <italic>single-best</italic> path. It prevents them from utilizing the benefit of multiple paths for achieving application-specific QoS objectives. In this work, we propose P4KP, a programmable switch-based novel scheme for utilizing the <italic>top-k</italic> best paths toward a destination in a QoS-aware manner. P4KP complements TCAM’s path-selection capability using SRAM; decouples path-searching from path-selection and facilitates the path-selection using an SRAM-based data structure. Its SRAM-based data structure reduces costly TCAM usage and enables the efficient update of the <italic>top-k</italic> best paths in the data plane. P4KP also provides a bitmask-based API to express the QoS-based policy for selecting <italic>one-of-the-top-k</italic> best paths. We implemented P4KP using P4 language to demonstrate that it is realizable in currently available programmable switches while maintaining line-rate throughput. Our preliminary evaluation shows that P4KP significantly reduces the stateful memory consumption in programmable switches and achieves improved performance. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2169-3536 |