Achelous: Enabling Programmability, Elasticity, and Reliability in Hyperscale Cloud Networks

Abstract

Cloud computing has witnessed tremendous growth, prompting enterprises to migrate to the cloud for reliable and on-demand computing. Within a single Virtual Private Cloud (VPC), the number of instances (such as VMs, bare metals, and containers) has reached millions, posing challenges related to supporting millions of instances with network location decoupling from the underlying hardware, high elastic performance, and high reliability. However, academic studies have primarily focused on specific issues like high-speed data plane and virtualized routing infrastructure, while existing industrial network technologies fail to adequately address these challenges.