Integrated network service processing using programmable network devices

TL;DR: Project NEon is the investigation of a paradigm shift away from special purpose network appliances to an integrated way to architect, operate, and manage data plane network services, and generated valuable lessons, including the validation of the standard APIs and the IETF ForCES protocol under consideration.

Abstract: Project NEon is the investigation of a paradigm shift away from special purpose network appliances to an integrated way to architect, operate, and manage data plane network services. We were interested in evaluating the benefits of data flow management and enforcement inside the data center edge. Starting in the early 1990's, network service functions that had traditionally been performed within servers moved into special purpose network appliances (e.g., firewalls and load balancers). The main driving force behind this trend was the need to place these functions inline into the data plane and operate these services at line rates. This technical solution has served as a sound business model for network appliance vendors during the last decade. However, as this approach became more prevalent and network speeds increased, its performance and manageability limits became apparent, too. The NEon architecture strictly divides the control plane, an instance of which is called the control plane policy manager, and the data plane, instances of which are called programmable rule enforcement devices. The control plane policy manager and programmable rule enforcement devices are separated through standard interfaces and protocols that are still being defined by standards bodies such as the Network Processor Forum (NPF) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF.) Our prototypes generated valuable lessons, including the validation of the standard APIs and the IETF ForCES (Forwarding and Control Element Separation) protocol under consideration.