CBNet: Minimizing Adjustments in Concurrent Demand-Aware Tree Networks

Abstract

This paper studies the design of demand-aware network topologies: networks that dynamically adapt themselves toward the demand they currently serve, in an online manner. While demand-aware networks may be significantly more efficient than demand-oblivious networks, frequent adjustments are still costly. Furthermore, a centralized controller of such networks may become a bottleneck.We present CBNet (Counting-Based self-adjusting Network), a demand-aware network that relies on a distributed control plane supporting concurrent adjustments, while significantly reducing the number of reconfigurations, compared to related work. CBNet comes with formal guarantees and is based on concepts of self-adjusting data structures. We evaluate CBNet analytically and empirically and we find that CBNet can effectively exploit locality structure in the traffic demand.