Agile: A high-scalable and low-jitter flow tables lifecycle management framework for multi-core programmable data plane

Abstract

In software-defined networking (SDN), the common flow table updates have constrained its performance. The current southbound protocol determines neither the priority nor the method of flow table update, which could result in latency-sensitive applications not being served timely. Moreover, such kind of update process causes severe jitters in the data plane. In this case, this paper presents Agile as a solution. Agile is a lifecycle management framework for flow tables based on software programmable data plane. It introduces a scheduling architecture to allow the controller to freely configure the flow table update method and determine the update priority, minimizing the impact on forwarding. Moreover, an aging scheme is also designed to maintain the consistency of multi-core platforms. Agile implements with the extent of southbound interface. Extensive experimental results show that Agile can reduce the average forwarding jitter brought about by flow table updates to 2.2 μs and save the update time by 56.9%.