DBNet: Leveraging DBMS for Network Automation

TL;DR

DBNet is a novel framework that leverages database management system primitives to enable flexible, data-driven network automation, integrating device state management, analytics, and policy enforcement.

Contribution

It introduces a DBMS-based architecture for network control that unifies state storage, automation, analytics, and provenance logging in a single system.

Findings

Overhead of DBNet is negligible for typical network automation timescales.

Demonstrates effective policy expression through DBNet's interface.

Applicable to cloud network infrastructure scenarios.

Abstract

We present DBNet, a data-driven network automation framework built on top of a DBMS. DBNet utilizes key primitives of a DBMS including tables, procedures, transactions, logging, and access control to serve the functions of a data-centric network control plane. DBNet accomplishes this functionality by storing mirrored network device states, executing automation programs on these mirror states within the DBMS, and proxying state updates out to the physical devices upon changes to mirror/local state. The framework also stores network telemetry data, performs analytics on the data, uses the analytics to motivate control plane actions, and provides provenance logging features on the actions taken. We apply DBNet to motivating cloud network infrastructure examples and show how developers can use DBNet's interface to express rich user-defined policies. Our preliminary case studies show that the overhead to run DBNet is trivial in the timescales generally relevant for network automation.