A Universal Architecture and Collaborative Approach for Polymorphic Smart Network Nodes

The Polymorphic Smart Network (PINet) is a novel network architecture proposed to overcome the bottleneck in network service efficiency caused by a single bearer. PINet is currently only a preliminary idea. Many concepts and techniques require further refinement and discussion. We introduce the PINet node universal architecture integrated with caching, computing and communication resources. The architecture is designed to meet the quality of service requirements under polymorphic network coexistence environment. Leveraging the capability and architecture of PINet nodes, combined with the PINet design principle “rich at the edge, simple at the core”, we develop a collaborative approach among hierarchical PINet nodes including smartNICs, coprocessor and node machine. Our experimental results show that the proposed PINet node architecture and collaborative method can effectively support polymorphic network environment with high availability and efficiency.