research-article

Consistent updates for software-defined networks: change you can believe in!

Authors:

Mark Reitblatt,

Jennifer Rexford,

David WalkerAuthors Info & Claims

HotNets-X: Proceedings of the 10th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks

Article No.: 7, Pages 1 - 6

https://doi.org/10.1145/2070562.2070569

Published: 14 November 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Configuration changes are a common source of instability in networks, leading to broken connectivity, forwarding loops, and access control violations. Even when the initial and final states of the network are correct, the update process often steps through intermediate states with incorrect behaviors. These problems have been recognized in the context of specific protocols, leading to a number of point solutions. However, a piecemeal attack on this fundamental problem, while pragmatic in the short term, is unlikely to lead to significant long-term progress.

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) provides an exciting opportunity to do better. Because SDN is a clean-slate platform, we can build general, reusable abstractions for network updates that come with strong semantic guarantees. We believe SDN desperately needs such abstractions to make programs simpler to design, more reliable, and easier to validate using automated tools. Moreover, we believe these abstractions should be provided by a runtime system, shielding the programmer from these concerns. We propose two simple, canonical, and effective update abstractions, and present implementation mechanisms. We also show how to integrate them with a network programming language, and discuss potential applications to program verification.

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Cited By

Weintraub BKim JTao RNita-Rotaru COkhravi HTian DUjcich BLuo BLiao XXu JKirda ELie D(2024)Exploiting Temporal Vulnerabilities for Unauthorized Access in Intent-based NetworkingProceedings of the 2024 on ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3658644.3670301(3630-3644)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3658644.3670301
Yang YHe LZhou JShi XCao JLiu YSekar VYu MSeneviratne AVeitch D(2024)P4runpro: Enabling Runtime Programmability for RMT Programmable SwitchesProceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2024 Conference10.1145/3651890.3672230(921-937)Online publication date: 4-Aug-2024
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Xing JHsu KXia YCai YLi YZhang YChen A(2024)Occam: A Programming System for Reliable Network ManagementProceedings of the Nineteenth European Conference on Computer Systems10.1145/3627703.3650086(148-162)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2024
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Index Terms

Consistent updates for software-defined networks: change you can believe in!
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Contextual software domains
      1. Operating systems

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

HotNets-X: Proceedings of the 10th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks

November 2011

148 pages

ISBN:9781450310598

DOI:10.1145/2070562

General Chairs:
Hari Balakrishnan
MIT
,
Dina Katabi
MIT
,
Program Chairs:
Aditya Akella
University of Wisconsin-Madison
,
Ion Stoica
UC Berkeley

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 14 November 2011

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HOTNETS-X

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SIGCOMM

HOTNETS-X: Tenth ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks

November 14 - 15, 2011

Massachusetts, Cambridge

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Cited By

Weintraub BKim JTao RNita-Rotaru COkhravi HTian DUjcich BLuo BLiao XXu JKirda ELie D(2024)Exploiting Temporal Vulnerabilities for Unauthorized Access in Intent-based NetworkingProceedings of the 2024 on ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security10.1145/3658644.3670301(3630-3644)Online publication date: 2-Dec-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3658644.3670301
Yang YHe LZhou JShi XCao JLiu YSekar VYu MSeneviratne AVeitch D(2024)P4runpro: Enabling Runtime Programmability for RMT Programmable SwitchesProceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2024 Conference10.1145/3651890.3672230(921-937)Online publication date: 4-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3651890.3672230
Xing JHsu KXia YCai YLi YZhang YChen A(2024)Occam: A Programming System for Reliable Network ManagementProceedings of the Nineteenth European Conference on Computer Systems10.1145/3627703.3650086(148-162)Online publication date: 22-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627703.3650086
Ceylan EChatterjee KSchmid SSvoboda J(2024)Congestion-Free Rerouting of Network Flows: Hardness and an FPT AlgorithmNOMS 2024-2024 IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium10.1109/NOMS59830.2024.10575579(1-7)Online publication date: 6-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/NOMS59830.2024.10575579
Kanwal ANizamuddin MIqbal WAman WAbbas YMussiraliyeva S(2024)Exploring Security Dynamics in SDN Controller Architectures: Threat Landscape and ImplicationsIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2024.339096812(56517-56553)Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3390968
Yusuf MBin Abu Bakar KIsyaku BMukhlif F(2023)Distributed Controller Placement in Software-Defined Networks with Consistency and Interoperability ProblemsJournal of Electrical and Computer Engineering10.1155/2023/64669962023Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1155/2023/6466996
Schneider TSchmid RVissicchio SVanbever LSchulzrinne HKohler EMaltz DMisra V(2023)Taming the transient while reconfiguring BGPProceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2023 Conference10.1145/3603269.3604855(77-93)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2023
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Chiang SWang CYang DLiao WChen W(2023)Distributed Multicast Traffic Engineering for Multi-Domain Software-Defined NetworksIEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems10.1109/TPDS.2022.320521934:2(446-462)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2023
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Alizadeh Noghani KKassler ATaheri JÖhlén PCurescu C(2023)Multiobjective Genetic Algorithm for Fast Service Function Chain ReconfigurationIEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management10.1109/TNSM.2022.319582020:3(3501-3522)Online publication date: Sep-2023
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Dolati MKhonsari AGhaderi M(2022)Minimizing Update Makespan in SDNs Without TCAM OverheadIEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management10.1109/TNSM.2022.314697119:2(1598-1613)Online publication date: Jun-2022
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