PFPSim: A programmable forwarding plane simulator

In this paper, we introduce PFPSim, a host-compiled simulator for early validation and analysis of packet processing applications on programmable forwarding plane architectures. The simulation model is automatically generated from a high-level description of the hardware/software architecture of the forwarding device and the behavioral description of the various modules in the architecture. Our high-level architectural description language is capable of defining many-core network processors as well as reconfigurable pipelines. The behavior of the fixed-function processing elements in the architecture is defined in C++. The code targeted for the processor cores, or reconfigurable pipeline stages, is compiled from P4, an emerging programming language for packet processing applications. Application developers can use PFPSim as a virtual prototype to simulate and debug their applications before hardware availability. Moreover, forwarding device architects can use PFPSim to evaluate the trade-offs between different hardware/software design decisions.