POSTER: Fine-grained Network Identification and Control Combining Routers and Programmable Switches

In this paper, we propose a fine-grained packet identification and control technique using a combination of commercial routers and programmable switches in existing IP networks. This technique enhances the control of existing users' communication in large-scale networks such as carrier networks, by utilizing the large amount of user-premises equipment and terminals already installed without modifying as much as possible. The packet identification in commercial routers involves not only identifying the destination address by the routing table but also filtering the arriving packets for access control. However, in large networks, the number of entries in the router can easily exceed the upper limit of the specification due to the bloated number of entries. The purpose of our proposal is to introduce programmable switches to apply fine-grained entries to specific packets roughly identified by commercial routers, thereby distributing the entries and achieving fine-grained packet identification even in large-scale networks. In our demonstration, we will target an MPLS VPN network and demonstrate how to forward packets of only specific users to P4 switches and how to flow only specific applications to high priority paths.