CNS Core:Medium: NFLambda -- A Granular, Scalable and Secure NFV Framework for High Performance Packet Processing at 100 Gbps and Beyond

The rapid growth of network bandwidth at the edge makes it possible to support high bandwidth 8K & volumetric video streaming, Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality and Distributed AI and IoT applications. The growing traffic demands from these new applications will pose enormous burdens on cellular packet core networks and mobile edge clouds, where NFV is meant to be a key enabling technology.

The software nature of network function virtualization (NFV) enables network operators to dynamically scale out/in by instantiating more/fewer instances of network functions (NFs) in accordance with traffic demands or in preparation for or reaction to failures, thereby providing high scalability, availability and fault tolerance. Perhaps more importantly, NFV endows network carriers and service providers with the ability to quickly adapt, upgrade or roll out new network features or services.

This proposal advances a new "greenfield" framework for refactoring and re-architecting NFV, referred to as NFLambda. The goal is to tackle the challenges in scaling packet processing for service function chaining in commodity multi-core servers to 100 Gbps and beyond. If successful, NFLamda will serve as an enabling technology for creating more cost effective and elastic service environments in emerging 5G and other access networks.

The goal of this project is to tackle the challenges in scaling service function chain packet processing in commodity multi-core servers to 100 Gbps and beyond, while at the same time being able to fully take advantage of the software nature of NFV. NFLambda is designed with several salient features using a novel actor framework in the style of functional reactive programming (FRP).

The NFLambda actor framework provides a powerful declarative, secure-by-design programming model with built-in monitoring and security mechanisms. The proposal advances a principled approach for decomposing conventional ("monolithic") NFs into a collection of granular actors via separation of control and data, refactoring both states and operations.

NFLambda is designed to not only take into account the server architecture and cache/memory access resource constraints, but also effectively leverage software/hardware capabilities (e.g., compilation optimization techniques and hardware accelerators), smart NICs and programmable switches to achieve high performance packet processing. NFLambda is highly scalable, resilient and secure by design.

The project will engage undergraduate, women and URM students in integrative research and education and provide outreach to K-12 students. The project will also engage industrial partners for tech transfer.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.