Survey on some optimization possibilities for data plane applications

TL;DR

This survey reviews recent developments in programmable data planes and SDN, highlighting emerging applications, research focus areas, and opportunities for optimization to enhance network flexibility and innovation.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current data plane programming approaches, abstractions, and applications, identifying future research directions and optimization opportunities.

Findings

Emerging applications are expanding data plane capabilities.

Research focuses on abstractions, languages, and algorithms.

Opportunities exist for further optimization and reconfiguration.

Abstract

By programming both the data plane and the control plane, network operators can customize their networks based on their needs, regardless of the hardware manufacturer. Control plane programming, a major component of the SDN (Software Defined Network) concept, has been developed for more than 10 years and successfully implemented in real networks. Efforts to develop reconfigurable data planes and high-level network programming languages make it truly possible to program data planes. Therefore, the programmable data planes and SDNs offer great flexibility in network customization, allowing many innovations to be introduced on the network. The general focus of research on the data plane is data-plane abstractions, languages and compilers, data plane algorithms, and applications. This paper outlines some emerging applications on the data plane and offers opportunities for further improvement and optimization.