Expanding OpenFlow capabilities with virtualized reConference Paperigurable hardware
Published in Proceedings of the 2015 ACM/SIGDA International Symposium on Field-Programmable Gate Arrays, 2015
We present a novel method of using cloud-based virtualized reConference Paperigurable hardware to enhance the functionality of OpenFlow Software-Defined Networks. OpenFlow is a capable and popular SDN implementation, but when users require new or unsupported packet-processing, software processing in the OpenFlow controller cannot provide multi-gigabit rates. Our method sees packet flows redirected through virtualized hardware with custom-designed packet-processing engines that can add new capabilities to an OpenFlow network, while retaining line-rate processing. A case study shows this can be achieved with virtually no loss in throughput and minimal latency overheads.