research-article

Open access

A P4-based 5G User Plane Function

Authors:

Robert MacDavid,

Carmelo Cascone,

Badhrinath Padmanabhan,

Larry Peterson,

Jennifer Rexford,

Oguz SunayAuthors Info & Claims

SOSR '21: Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Symposium on SDN Research (SOSR)

Pages 162 - 168

https://doi.org/10.1145/3482898.3483358

Published: 08 November 2021 Publication History

Abstract

The demands on mobile networks are constantly evolving, but designing and integrating new high-speed packet processing remains a challenge due to the complexity of requirements and opacity of protocol specifications. 5G data planes should be implemented in programmable hardware for both speed and flexibility, and extending or replacing these data planes should be painless. In this paper we implement the 5G data plane using two P4 programs: one that acts as a open-source model data plane to simplify the interface with the control plane, and one to run efficiently on hardware switches to minimize latency and maximize bandwidth. The model data plane enables testing changes made to the control plane before integrating with a performant data plane, and vice versa. The hardware data plane implements the fast path for device traffic, and makes use of microservices to implement functions that highspeed switch hardware cannot do. Our data plane implementation is currently in limited deployment on three university campuses where it is enabling new research on mobile networks.

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Cited By

Giménez-Antón SGrasa EPerelló JCárdenas A(2024)6G-RUPA: A Flexible, Scalable, and Energy-Efficient User Plane Architecture for Next-Generation Mobile NetworksComputers10.3390/computers1308018613:8(186)Online publication date: 25-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/computers13080186
Campbell EHojjat HFoster N(2024)Computing Precise Control Interface SpecificationsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36897438:OOPSLA2(905-934)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689743
Zheng CZang MHong XPerreault LBensoussane RVargaftik SBen-Itzhak YZilberman N(2024)Planter: Rapid Prototyping of In-Network Machine Learning InferenceACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review10.1145/3687230.368723254:1(2-21)Online publication date: 6-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1145/3687230.3687232
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Index Terms

A P4-based 5G User Plane Function
1. Networks

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cover image ACM Conferences

SOSR '21: Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Symposium on SDN Research (SOSR)

October 2021

190 pages

ISBN:9781450390842

DOI:10.1145/3482898

Copyright © 2021 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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SIGCOMM: ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication

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Published: 08 November 2021

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DARPA

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SOSR '21

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SIGCOMM

SOSR '21: The ACM SIGCOMM Symposium on SDN Research

October 11 - 12, 2021

Virtual Event, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 7 of 43 submissions, 16%

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Cited By

Giménez-Antón SGrasa EPerelló JCárdenas A(2024)6G-RUPA: A Flexible, Scalable, and Energy-Efficient User Plane Architecture for Next-Generation Mobile NetworksComputers10.3390/computers1308018613:8(186)Online publication date: 25-Jul-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/computers13080186
Campbell EHojjat HFoster N(2024)Computing Precise Control Interface SpecificationsProceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages10.1145/36897438:OOPSLA2(905-934)Online publication date: 8-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3689743
Zheng CZang MHong XPerreault LBensoussane RVargaftik SBen-Itzhak YZilberman N(2024)Planter: Rapid Prototyping of In-Network Machine Learning InferenceACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review10.1145/3687230.368723254:1(2-21)Online publication date: 6-Aug-2024
https://doi.org/10.1145/3687230.3687232
Zhou CXiang QPu LLiu ZZhang YYuan XXu J(2024)NetDPI: Efficient Deep Packet Inspection via Filtering-Plus-Verification in Programmable 5G Data Plane for Multi-Access Edge ComputingIEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing10.1109/TMC.2024.345069123:12(15031-15047)Online publication date: Dec-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMC.2024.3450691
Fida MAhmed ADreibholz TOcampo AElmokashfi AMichelinakis F(2024)Bottleneck Identification in Cloudified Mobile Networks Based on Distributed TelemetryIEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing10.1109/TMC.2023.331205123:5(5660-5676)Online publication date: May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/TMC.2023.3312051
Qi SRamakrishnan KChen J(2024)L²6GC: Evolving the Low-Latency Core for Future Cellular NetworksIEEE Internet Computing10.1109/MIC.2024.337665528:2(29-36)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1109/MIC.2024.3376655
Goshi EHarkous HAhvar SPries RMehmeti FKellerer W(2024)Joint UPF and Edge Applications Placement and Routing in 5G & Beyond2024 IEEE 21st International Conference on Mobile Ad-Hoc and Smart Systems (MASS)10.1109/MASS62177.2024.00065(446-452)Online publication date: 23-Sep-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/MASS62177.2024.00065
Phan LPesch DRoedig USreenan C(2024)Building a 5G Core Network Testbed: Open-Source Solutions, Lessons Learned, and Research Directions2024 International Conference on Information Networking (ICOIN)10.1109/ICOIN59985.2024.10572091(641-646)Online publication date: 17-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICOIN59985.2024.10572091
Moon YHan YKim SSai MDeshmukh AKim D(2024)Data Plane Acceleration Using Heterogeneous Programmable Network Devices Towards 6GICC 2024 - IEEE International Conference on Communications10.1109/ICC51166.2024.10622666(421-426)Online publication date: 9-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICC51166.2024.10622666
Sharma SLai YGumaste ALin Y(2024)P4+NFV: Optimal offloading from P4 switches to NFV for diverse traffic streamsComputer Networks10.1016/j.comnet.2024.110907(110907)Online publication date: Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2024.110907
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