Safe Networks using P4 Programs

Project Information

SafeNet

Grant agreement ID: 875690

DOI

10.3030/875690

Project closed

EC signature date 26 August 2019

Start date 1 September 2019

End date 31 May 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 150 000,00

Coordinated by

CORRECT NETWORKS SRL
Romania

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SafeNet (Safe Networks using P4 Programs)

Reporting period: 2019-09-01 to 2021-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SafeNet aims to help operators run performant, robust datacenter networks. The project's starting point was network verification of P4 programs developed in the CORNET ERC project, with the goal of transitioning the academic research into real network verification products.

The project involved close collaborations with two network equipment vendors, a major cloud and a major telco operator to guide the search for a deployable product. The result is a novel network performance verification that builds upon our starting point (P4 verification) and existing control and plane verification works in the literature to provide performance verification: runtime, passive monitoring of datacenter network performance to test that it behaves as expected.

We have finalised a prototype of EQDSmon, our solution, and have deployed it in trials with a telco operator that is deploying a datacenter network for its 5G core elements. EQDSmon is now the basis of an exponential growth phase that CNW will engage on starting 2022.