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1. HeteroSketch: Coordinating Network-wide Monitoring in Heterogeneous and Dynamic Networks

   Agarwal, Anup; Liu, Zaoxing; Seshan, Srinivasan (April 2022, 19th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 22))

   Network monitoring and measurement have always been critical components of network management. Recent developments in sketch-based monitoring techniques and the deployment opportunities arising from the increasing programmability of network elements (e.g., programmable switches, SmartNICs, and software switches) have made the possibility of accurate, detailed, network-wide telemetry tantalizingly within reach. However, the wide heterogeneity of the programmable hardware and dynamic changes in both resources available and resources needed for monitoring over time make existing approaches to network-wide monitoring impractical. We present HeteroSketch, a framework that consists of two main components: (1) a profiling tool that automatically quantifies the capabilities of arbitrary hardware by predicting their performance for sketching algorithms, and (2) an optimization framework that decides placement of measurement tasks and resource allocation for devices to meet monitoring goals while considering heterogeneous device capabilities. HeteroSketch enables optimized deployments for large networks (> 40,000 nodes) using a novel clustering approach and enables prompt responses to network topology, traffic, query, and resource dynamics. Our evaluation shows that HeteroSketch reduces resource overheads by 20-60% compared to prior art, while maintaining monitoring performance, coverage, and accuracy. 

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2. HeteroSketch: Coordinating Network-wide Monitoring in Heterogeneous and Dynamic Networks

   Agarwal, Anup; Liu, Zaoxing; Seshan, Srinivasan (April 2022, SENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation)

   Network monitoring and measurement have always been critical components of network management. Recent developments in sketch-based monitoring techniques and the deployment opportunities arising from the increasing programmability of network elements (e.g., programmable switches, SmartNICs, and software switches) have made the possibility of accurate, detailed, network-wide telemetry tantalizingly within reach. However, the wide heterogeneity of the programmable hardware and dynamic changes in both resources available and resources needed for monitoring over time make existing approaches to network-wide monitoring impractical. We present HeteroSketch, a framework that consists of two main components: (1) a profiling tool that automatically quantifies the capabilities of arbitrary hardware by predicting their performance for sketching algorithms, and (2) an optimization framework that decides placement of measurement tasks and resource allocation for devices to meet monitoring goals while considering heterogeneous device capabilities. HeteroSketch enables optimized deployments for large networks (> 40,000 nodes) using a novel clustering approach and enables prompt responses to network topology, traffic, query, and resource dynamics. Our evaluation shows that HeteroSketch reduces resource overheads by 20-60% compared to prior art, while maintaining monitoring performance, coverage, and accuracy. 

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3. HeteroSketch: Coordinating Network-wide Monitoring in Heterogeneous and Dynamic Networks

   Agarwal, Anup; Liu, Zaoxing; Seshan, Srinivasan (April 2022, 19th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI'22))

   Network monitoring and measurement have always been critical components of network management. Recent developments in sketch-based monitoring techniques and the deployment opportunities arising from the increasing programmability of network elements (e.g., programmable switches, SmartNICs, and software switches) have made the possibility of accurate, detailed, network-wide telemetry tantalizingly within reach. However, the wide heterogeneity of the programmable hardware and dynamic changes in both resources available and resources needed for monitoring over time make existing approaches to network-wide monitoring impractical. We present HeteroSketch, a framework that consists of two main components: (1) a profiling tool that automatically quantifies the capabilities of arbitrary hardware by predicting their performance for sketching algorithms, and (2) an optimization framework that decides placement of measurement tasks and resource allocation for devices to meet monitoring goals while considering heterogeneous device capabilities. HeteroSketch enables optimized deployments for large networks (> 40,000 nodes) using a novel clustering approach and enables prompt responses to network topology, traffic, query, and resource dynamics. Our evaluation shows that HeteroSketch reduces resource overheads by 20−60% compared to prior art, while maintaining monitoring performance, coverage, and accuracy. 

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4. Practical Packet Deflection in Datacenters

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3629147  

   Abdous, Sepehr; Sharafzadeh, Erfan; Ghorbani, Soudeh (November 2023, Proceedings of the ACM on Networking)

   Bursts, sudden surges in network utilization, are a significant root cause of packet loss and high latency in datacenters. Packet deflection, re-routing packets that arrive at a local hotspot to neighboring switches, is shown to be a potent countermeasure against bursts. Unfortunately, existing deflection techniques cannot be implemented in today's datacenter switches. This is because, to minimize packet drops and remain effective under extreme load, existing deflection techniques rely on certain hardware primitives (e.g., extracting packets from arbitrary locations in the queue) that datacenter switches do not support. In this paper, we address the implementability hurdles of packet deflection. This paper proposes heuristics for approximating state-of-the-art deflection techniques in programmable switches. We introduce Simple Deflection which deflects excess traffic to randomly selected, non-congested ports and Preemptive Deflection (PD) in which switches identify the packets likely to be selected for deflection and preemptively deflect them before they are enqueued. We implement and evaluate our techniques on a testbed with Intel Tofino switches. Our testbed evaluations show that Simple and Preemptive Deflection improve the 99th percentile response times by 8× and 425×, respectively, compared to a baseline drop-tail queue under 90% load. Using large-scale network simulations, we show that the performance of our algorithms is close to the deflection techniques that they intend to approximate, e.g., PD achieves 4% lower 99th percentile query completion times (QCT) than Vertigo, a recent deflection technique that cannot be implemented in off-the-shelf switches, and 2.5× lower QCT than ECMP under 95% load. 

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5. Enhancing P4-Based Network Emulation Fidelity Through a Lightweight Virtual Time System and Application Evaluation

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3725530  

   Chen, Gong; Hu, Zheng; Qu, Yanfeng; Jin, Dong (April 2025, ACM Transactions on Modeling and Computer Simulation)

   P4 serves as a programming language for configuring flexible and programmable network data planes, facilitating the development of custom protocols and programmable switches, and driving innovation in software-defined networking and network function virtualization. While the Linux container based network emulator, Mininet, coupled with the BMv2 software P4 switch, is widely used for rapid prototyping of P4-based applications, BMv2’s diminished performance raises fidelity concerns under high traffic and large network scenarios. In this paper, we introduce a lightweight virtual time system integrated into Mininet with BMv2 to enhance fidelity and scalability. By applying a time dilation factor (TDF) to interactions between containers and the physical machine, we optimize the emulated P4 network’s perceived speed from the application processes’ perspective. System evaluation demonstrates accurate emulation of significantly larger networks under high loads with minimal system overhead. We showcase our system’s utility through two network applications: an emulation of a TCP SYN flood attack and an ECMP load balancer. Evaluating against a production-grade software switch, Open vSwitch, and a physical testbed, we highlight the virtual time system’s improvement in temporal fidelity despite the observed performance degradation in BMv2 software switches. 

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