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Computer Science Research Seminar

February 23, 2018 at 3 pm in 3107 Patrick F. Taylor Hall

 

Speaker: Wei Zhang, George Washington University

Title: Towards an Efficient, Flexible and Scalable NFV-Based Data Plane

 

Abstract: Network function virtualization (NFV) allows traditional hardware middleboxes such as routers and firewalls to run as software on commodity servers, which enables complex, flexible and customized network services. Unfortunately software is typically slower than hardware. In addition, different network flows may need to be steered into different sequences of network functions (called service chains) with customized needs. Furthermore, as network functions become more complex, we need to bring together advances in OS and networking to build efficient and scalable network functions.


In this talk, I will describe an efficient and flexible data plane platform - openNetVM with zero extra packet copy, which can process packets at line rate. Next, I will show a management controller in data plane, Flurries which can provide flow-level performance management and customized service chain. Then, I will describe a software-based load balancer as an example to show how to build efficient and scalable network functions on top of NFV platform. Finally, I will conclude the talk with a brief discussion of my future research plan.

Bio: Wei Zhang is a PhD student in the Department of Computer Science at the George Washington University. Her projects cover various aspects of computer network and system issues aiming at building efficient, scalable, and flexible network platforms for software-based network functions and developing efficient resource management and scheduling solutions for cloud systems. Her research interests include network function virtualization (NFV), software defined network (SDN), cloud computing, virtualization, distributed systems and systems. Her research has appeared in a number of premier conferences and workshops in networking and cloud systems, including CoNext, SIGCOMM, Middleware, SOSR and HotCloud. She received a Best Paper Award from ICAC 2016, Cisco scholarship 2016, second prize in Geni
networking competition 2015, Beihang outstanding graduate student and national scholarship in 2014. She has taken research internships in HP labs, AT&T labs research, Futurewei, VMware, Baidu, and Oracle in networking and cloud groups.