Libera for Programmable Network Virtualization

Abstract

Current network virtualization allows tenants to have their own virtual networks. However, new demands to "program" virtual networks at a finer granularity have arisen as tenants want the ability to provision and control switches and links in their virtual networks. This study proposes a new concept called the p-NIaaS model. The p-NIaaS model enables tenants to program their own packet processing logic and monitor network status from any virtual network infrastructure, which is not possible with current network virtualization. This article presents the Libera network hypervisor that implements the p-NIaaS model. Libera overcomes the shortcomings of existing network hypervisors such as scalability, VM migration support, and flexibility. The evaluation shows that the Libera hypervisor is highly scalable and effectively supports VM migration. We also present the overheads of Libera. Libera incurs up to 11 percent overhead in comparison with a non-virtualized network, which we believe is promising in the first prototype of the p-NIaaS model.