ONF Connect 2019

The design of high-performance networks requires efficient design at all layers of the network as well as building on abstractions at each layer. This talk introduces key technologies of Broadcom at each layer and their design to support an efficient implementation.

Network controllers need device data reliably and quickly to configure the switches to run smoothly. Controllers also need to react quickly to faults and steer the traffic to avoid congested or non-functional parts of the network. This requires an SDK that provides a high performance Device interface. Logical Table SDK(SDKLT) is a new approach to switch configuration using Logical Tables to solve these problems.

At the device layer, performance, features and scalability requirements must be balanced with latency, power and silicon area constraints. For programmable devices, programming languages must focus equally on codifying packet processing flows and enabling efficient use of available hardware resources.

Earlier this year, Broadcom open sourced the NPL (Network Programming Language) specification in conjunction with the release of Trident 4, a 12.8Tbps fully programmable network switch ASIC. NPL introduces new concepts such as “function primitives” that separate action logic from table lookups; “object strengths” that simplify resolution across various table lookups and explicit support for multiple lookup tables. NPL and SDKLT are designed to work in conjunction to provide an efficient implementation of a networking stack.