Programming the Network Data Plane in P4

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has been successful because it lets network owners and operators “program” network behavior. SDN’s programmability, however, is confined to the network control plane today. The forwarding plane is still largely dictated by fixed-function packet-processing hardware. Our goal is to change that, and to allow programmers to define how packets are to be processed all the way down to the wire.

In this talk, I will first give a quick overview of PISA and explain why it is inevitable; within the next couple of years I expect all switching chips to be programmable, with no performance, power or cost penalty. I will then give a brief primer on the P4 language, showing some example programs for a variety of different networks, demonstrating the power of writing portable and reusable P4 programs. Finally I will introduce a few exciting use cases that data-plane programmability can enable, along with new challenges and problems warranting further study.

[ravindranshanmugam]

Great coverage and articulation on P4 with full technical depth. !! Thank you so much.

[mendaxcn]

Please! I need to install the P4 compiler and learn to program in this urgent language, I have tried several tutorials and none work in Ubuntu 18.04.5 (LTS), what I need to do is: Use Stratum OS to transform into an access point programmable in P4, I can't find any documentation in this regard, could someone help me? Thanks.