Events Calendar

CS Colloquium: Josh Reich: Modular Programming for Software Defined Networks

Speaker: Josh Reich, Princeton University

Talk Title: Modular Programming for Software Defined Networks

Series: CS Colloquium

Abstract: In Software Defined Networks (SDN), a network application comprising many disparate tasks must be converted to a single set of packet-processing rules on network switches. Such rules are specified in terms of low-level hardware-centric operations. Thus, without additional logic, the rules comprising multiple independently written components cannot be composed as these will likely conflict.
Moreover, such rules inherently encode the details of the particular network topology for which they are written. Today's SDN platforms neither automate the process of composing independently written software components, nor provide abstractions for decoupling irrelevant topological features from core software logic.
Consequently, network programmers are forced to write monolithic programs tied to particular topologies - an expensive, error-prone process that produces code that is neither portable, nor reusable.

I will discuss our work to resolve both of these problems. I will introduce novel techniques for synthesizing a set of independent software components into a single coherent network application by providing both series and parallel composition operators. The talk will then turn to decoupling core software component logic from irrelevant topology specifics by providing transformed views of the network to software components. I will demonstrate two such mechanisms: a lightweight labeling technique that enriches the network view with abstracted attributes and a heavier-weight technique capable of hiding topologic detail by presenting views comprising virtualized switches and links.

Biography: Dr. Joshua Reich is a postdoctoral researcher working with Professor Jen Rexford at the Department of Computer Science, Princeton University. He designs and then builds systems to utilize networked infrastructure more easily and efficiently - currently focusing on Software Defined Networks. His other research interests include cloud computing, mobile/wireless systems, and green networks, Joshua was selected as an NSF/CRA Computing Innovation Fellow in the 2011 Cohort. He received Best Student Demo at ACM MobiCom/MobiHoc 2007 and was an ACM SRC Finalist at SIGCOMM 2010. Joshua's dissertation work on scalable P2P virtual machine streaming led to the founding of a startup, Silver Lining Systems.

Joshua earned his BA (Magna Cum Laude, Mathematics, 2002), MS (Computer Science, 2004), and PhD (Computer Science, 2011) from Columbia University, where he was co-advised by Professors Vishal Misra and Dan Rubenstein. During his PhD studies, Joshua interned with Sandia National Labs (NM and CA), Microsoft Research (Bangalore and Redmond) and Technicolor (Paris).

Host: Minlan Yu

Location: SOS B37

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Assistant to CS chair