PdP

Abstract

Network virtualization provides the ability to run multiple concurrent virtual networks over a shared substrate. However, it is challenging to design such a platform to host multiple heterogenous and often highly customized virtual networks. Not only minimal interference among different virtual networks is desired, high speed packet processing is also required. This paper presents PdP, a flexible virtual network platform which can achieve high speed packet processing. A PdP node has a cluster of machines that can perform packet processing in parallel. Each virtual network can be allocated with one or multiple forwarding machines so as to satisfy the packet processing requirement of the virtual network. Furthermore, a virtual network hosted in PdP has the freedom to be fully customized. Both the control plane and the data plane of a virtual network run in virtual machines so as to be isolated from other virtual networks. We have built a proof-of-concept prototype of the PdP platform using off-the-shelf commodity hardware and open source software. The performance measurement shows promising results.