Title:
Simpler Network Configuration with State-Based Network Policies
Simpler Network Configuration with State-Based Network Policies
Author(s)
Kim, Hyojoon
Gupta, Arpit
Shahbaz, Muhammad
Reich, Joshua
Feamster, Nick
Clark, Russ
Gupta, Arpit
Shahbaz, Muhammad
Reich, Joshua
Feamster, Nick
Clark, Russ
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Abstract
Operators make hundreds of changes to a network’s router
and switch configurations every day—a painstaking, error-prone process. If the network configuration could instead
encode different forwarding behavior for different network
states a priori, a network controller could automatically
alter forwarding behavior when conditions change. To enable this capability, we introduce
state-based network policies, which describe how a network’s forwarding behavior
should change in response to arbitrary network events. A
state-based network policy comprises many tasks, each of
which encodes the forwarding behavior for a single network management operation (e.g., intrusion detection) or part of the network (e.g., a sub-organization), and how that behavior should change when network conditions
change. Composing these policies produces a network-wide control program that adapts to different operating
conditions. We implement state-based network policies in a system called PyResonance and demonstrate with real-world examples and use cases that PyResonance is
expressive enough to specify a wide range of network policies and simple enough for many operators to use. Our
evaluation based on event traces from the Georgia Tech
campus network shows that PyResonance can achieve good
performance in operational settings.
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Date Issued
2013
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Text
Resource Subtype
Technical Report