Talk: Programmable networks: History and Perspectives
Abstract: Traditional computer networks have long suffered from «ossification» due to the tight vertical integration of control and data planes within closed, proprietary hardware, a rigidity that hinders rapid innovation. This presentation shows how the advent of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) revolutionized this model by decoupling the control plane from the underlying data plane, enabling logically centralized network management and open interfaces. Building on the foundations of SDN, the evolution toward data plane programmability—driven by the P4 programming language and the Protocol-Independent Switch Architecture (PISA)—allows operators to define exact packet parsing and processing behaviors independently of specific network protocols or target hardware. This presentation shows how this extreme flexibility unlocks novel capabilities at line rate, such as In-Network Machine Learning, which offloads complex tasks like training gradient aggregation and model inference directly into programmable switches and SmartNICs to reduce latency and bandwidth bottlenecks. Additionally, the presentation details how programmable data planes empower robust cybersecurity defenses, mitigating both volumetric (e.g., DDoS) and non-volumetric attacks at Terabit speeds directly within the network infrastructure. Finally, we show how these software-defined architectures serve as a critical pillar for 5G and 6G cellular networks, facilitating the dynamic orchestration of radio resources, mobility management, and interference mitigation required by ultra-dense environments.
