Onix: a distributed control platform for large-scale production networks

TLDR

Traditional computer networks lack a general control paradigm, forcing each new function to implement its own state distribution, discovery, and failure‑recovery mechanisms. The authors introduce Onix to provide a common control platform that enables flexible, reliable, and feature‑rich network control planes as distributed systems. Onix offers a general API and basic state‑distribution primitives that let control planes operate on a global network view while choosing trade‑offs among consistency, durability, and scalability.

Abstract

Computer networks lack a general control paradigm, as traditional networks do not provide any network-wide management abstractions. As a result, each new function (such as routing) must provide its own state distribution, element discovery, and failure recovery mechanisms. We believe this lack of a common control platform has significantly hindered the development of flexible, reliable and feature-rich network control planes.To address this, we present Onix, a platform on top of which a network control plane can be implemented as a distributed system. Control planes written within Onix operate on a global view of the network, and use basic state distribution primitives provided by the platform. Thus Onix provides a general API for control plane implementations, while allowing them to make their own trade-offs among consistency, durability, and scalability.