Personal Insights on Three Research Directions in Networked Systems

Abstract

In this work, we draw from our research and industry experience in the design of networked systems and define research directions that can simplify management and better exploit network infrastructure. We introduce problems both on data and control planes related to the design of a single network element and network-wide behaviors, concentrating on three directions: processing a single packet with packet classifiers, processing streams of packets in network switches, and network-wide control plane optimization. In particular, we consider efficient representations of packet classifiers, expressive implementations of buffer management policies, the composition of heterogeneous control planes, network virtualization, and extension of the network stack to support interactive applications. For the considered research directions outlined here, we formulate problems that, we believe, are important in the design of network systems. The purpose of this work is to attract system researchers to specific problems introduced in this paper.