Passive In-Band Network Telemetry Systems: The Potential of Programmable Data Plane on Network-Wide Telemetry

Abstract

In the last few years, the emergence of Programmable Data Planes and the appearance of programming protocol-independent languages such as P4 have offered powerful tools to define new network protocols, as well as to redesign existing network applications and systems. Network telemetry is one of the main areas of interest identified by the P4 Application Working Group. The collection of network-wide, fine-grained network information in real-time is a critical requirement for the design of useful and adequate monitoring tools that can be integrated into complex Operations, Administration Maintenance applications. Recent research has focused on the definition and implementation of in-band monitoring systems, where specifically dedicated monitoring packets are not required. Even though the In-Band Network Telemetry specification proposed by the P4 Language Consortium is the starting point of many of the in-band monitoring systems, this is not the only alternative. Therefore, in this work, we will describe and compare other P4-based in-band passive telemetry proposals.