Scalable Network Function Virtualization for Heterogeneous Middleboxes

Time: Thursday, October 26, 2017 - 11:00am - 12:00pm
Type: Seminar Series
Presenter: Russell Tessier; Associate Dean of Engineering, University of Massachusetts - Amherst
Room/Office: Dunham 107
Location:
J. Robert Mann, Jr. Engineering Student Center
10 Hillhouse Avenue
New Haven, CT 06511
United States

Department of Electrical Engineering Seminar

“Scalable Network Function Virtualization for Heterogeneous Middleboxes”  

Russell Tessier
Associate Dean of Engineering
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Massachusetts - Amherst

Over the past decade, a wide-ranging collection of network functions in middleboxes has been used to accommodate the needs of network users. Although the use of general-purpose processors has been shown to be feasible for this purpose, the serial nature of microprocessors limits network functional virtualization (NFV) performance. In this talk, we describe a new heterogeneous hardware-software approach to NFV construction that provides scalability and programmability, while supporting significant hardware-level parallelism and reconfiguration. Our computing platform uses both field-programmable gate arrays (FPGA) and microprocessors to implement numerous NFV operations that can be dynamically customized to specific network flow needs. Traffic management and hardware reconfiguration functions are performed by a global coordinator that allows for the rapid sharing of middlebox state and continuous evaluation of network function needs. To evaluate our approach, a series of software tools and NFV modules have been implemented. Our system is shown to be scalable for collections of network functions exceeding one million shared states.  Russell Tessier Russell Tessier has worked in the research area of reconfigurable computing for the past 25 years. In addition to being a professor, he is the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies for the UMass College of Engineering. His current research interests include security for field-programmable gate arrays, networks-on-chip, and embedded systems. 

Thursday, October, 26th at 11:00AM
Mann Student Center, 10 Hillhouse Ave. 

Hosted by Professor Jakub Szefer