ExpoNET: A Flexible Platform for Concurrent Experiments on Programmable Infrastructure

Abstract

Network community needs a flexible platform for network experiment of new architectures, algorithms and protocols in the process of network innovation. However, building such a platform faces lots of challenges due to complicate requirements. In this paper, we present ExpoNet, a platform for rapid concurrent experiment of network innovation on the virtualized programmable infrastructure. ExpoNet integrates both software-and hardware-based router virtualization technologies to provide a flexible approach to configure and customize both the control plane and data plane while satisfying various experiment requirements. We implement ExpoNet, and design a management system to efficiently provide the users with convenient interface to access the platform. Based on its implementation, we present a live network experiment of Network Tomography, which infers the network inner performance according to the observed results of outside nodes. The experiment design and related results show the flexibility and effectiveness of our ExpoNet.