OpenTag: Tag-Based Network Slicing for Wide-Area Coordinated In-Network Packet Processing

Slicing resources for wide-area coordinated packet processing has attracted attentions for improving resilience and efficiency of the access to cloud computing platforms, such as packet caching and advanced routing. We posit that the requirements for realizing wide-area coordinated packet processing are three-fold: (1) wide-area coordination of processing, (2) traffic classification with performance isolation, and (3) avoidance of cross-talks among slices. We propose OpenTag, a wide-area coordinated packet processing mechanism with both performance and security isolation and show OpenTag is feasible for production use, achieving over 10-Gbps forwarding rate, when enabled in high-end routers.