LCDN: Providing Network Determinism with Low-Cost Switches

TL;DR

LCDN introduces a cost-effective system enabling real-time, deterministic networking on inexpensive hardware like off-the-shelf switches and Raspberry Pi devices, supporting strict delay guarantees at Gigabit speeds.

Contribution

This paper presents LCDN, a novel system that achieves network determinism using low-cost hardware, bridging the gap between expensive enterprise solutions and affordable testbed setups.

Findings

LCDN operates at Gigabit speed with deterministic delay guarantees.

The system effectively uses inexpensive switches and Raspberry Pi devices.

Evaluation shows LCDN provides reliable real-time performance on low-cost hardware.

Abstract

The demands on networks are increasing at a fast pace. In particular, real-time applications have very strict network requirements. However, building a network that hosts real-time applications is a cost-intensive endeavor, especially for experimental systems such as testbeds. Systems that provide guaranteed real-time networking capabilities usually work with expensive software-defined switches. In contrast, real-time networking systems based on low-cost hardware face the limitation of lower link speeds. This paper fills this gap and presents Low-Cost Deterministic Networking (LCDN), a system designed to work with inexpensive, common off-the-shelf switches and devices. LCDN works at Gigabit speed and enables powerful testbeds to host real-time applications with strict delay guarantees. This paper also provides an evaluation of the determinism of the switch and a Raspberry Pi used as an end device to demonstrate the applicability of LCDN on inexpensive low-power reduced capacity apparatus.