P4 and P4Runtime Technical Introduction and Use Cases for the Next-Gen SDN Stack
P4 is gaining industry momentum. New language features allow describing more forwarding devices, not only programmable ones but also fixed-function conventional ones. P4Runtime was introduced as the n …
| Talk Title | P4 and P4Runtime Technical Introduction and Use Cases for the Next-Gen SDN Stack |
| Speakers | Carmelo Cascone (MTS, Open Networking Foundation) |
| Conference | Open Networking Summit North America |
| Conf Tag | |
| Location | San Jose, CA, USA |
| Date | Apr 2- 5, 2019 |
| URL | Talk Page |
| Slides | Talk Slides |
| Video | |
P4 is gaining industry momentum. New language features allow describing more forwarding devices, not only programmable ones but also fixed-function conventional ones. P4Runtime was introduced as the next-gen SDN open control plane API, aiming at fixing the shortcomings of OpenFlow and capable of delivering true switch silicon independence for carriers and cloud service providers. In this tutorial, we provide a technical overview of P4 and P4Runtime, highlighting benefits and challenges for their adoption. Moreover, we present some of the open source projects enabling the next-gen SDN stack based on P4, such as Stratum and ONOS. Finally, we discuss some of the use cases, including Trellis, a silicon-independent fabric for edge and access services, and the possibility to offload VNFs from servers to switches, such as the mobile 5G user plane and the BNG for residential access.
