P4-MTAGG - a Framework for Multi-Tenant P4 Network Devices

The current P4 programmability model assumes that a P4 programmable device is owned and controlled by a single tenant. However, in typical NFV scenarios, support for multiple tenants is desirable. When each tenant may want to deploy their own P4 pipeline offering different network functions (NF), supporting multiple co-existing tenant pipelines on a single platform is difficult because it requires pipeline merging, control plane support, and resource management of the platform. In this paper, we present P4-MTAGG, a novel framework for flexibly deploying multiple P4 programmable NFs on a programmable match-action pipeline while supporting multiple tenants. P4-MTAGG consists of i) novel compiler-add-ons for automatic merging multiple P4-pipelines, ii) p4runtime-proxy to allow for control plane access of the aggregated pipelines together with policy-based resource management for the P4 target, and iii) orchestrator to automate the provisioning of a network node utilizing aggregation either in a simulated or real hardware environment. In this demo, we show how P4-MTAGG aggregates multiple NFs of varying complexity in Mininet. The user can orchestrate the aggregation process through a GUI. The per-tenant traffic is routed through the set of NFs using segment routing. Through the GUI, the user can instruct the p4runtime-proxy to enforce per-tenant bandwidth limits, which configure the per-tenant available resources in the data plane.