Utilizing Hybrid P4 Solutions to Enhance 5G gNB with Data Plane Programmability

The typical approach to data plane programming involves deploying a single P4 program to a single target. However, different targets have different capabilities, functionalities, and support for various programming languages apart from P4. Consequently, disaggregating a single data plane program into multiple subprograms that run on different targets can take advantage of the strengths of each target, which is particularly important in the context of 5G, as certain data plane processing functions, like buffering and retransmission for RLC processing, cannot effectively be expressed in P4. This paper explores the disaggregation of a 5G gNB across a P4-programmable Smart-NIC and an x86 server using DPDK-based processing, leveraging the strengths of each target. We assess the performance of our hybrid approach by varying which parts of the pipeline run on the SmartNIC and the x86, as well as the number of cores allocated on the host for the non-P4 part of the pipeline.