Preprocessing Monitoring Information on the SDN Data-Plane using P4

Abstract

Network management applications such as routing, load-balancing, or traffic forecasting, require up-to-date state information about the underlying data-plane. However, it is well known that data-plane measurements contain redundant information. In this work, we propose an approach that estimates how informative data-plane measurements are for control-plane applications that operate on such information. Using programmable data-planes, we present a novel approach on how the decision on forwarding data-plane measurements can be taken at network switches, and how this aids in filtering irrelevant monitoring information to save the controller’s computational and networking resources.