GENI with a Network Processing Unit: Enriching SDN Application Experiments

This paper reports the integration of Dell´s specialized split data plane (SDP) OpenFlow switch into the GENI testbed. In addition, the paper outlines the research directions in network science and engineering that such a switch may enable together with a new perspective on education in network programming. An SDP switch can be used to perform some specialized processing on flows with special hardware accelerators in addition to hosting any application (running on a Linux OS) that a user may insert on the path of a flow. The SDP switch is composed of a Dell switch (PowerConnect 7024) with an internal physical connection to a sub-unit, Network Processor Unit (NPU), by Cavium Networks. Hosting an OpenvSwitch on the NPU with open hosting of Linux applications enables software-defined networking experiments. The integration challenges/process associated with this unit is presented as a future reference to other such foreign box integrations.