TCAM-efficient flow table mapping scheme for OpenFlow multiple-table pipelines

Zhongjin LIU; Yong LI; Li SU; Depeng JIN; Lieguang ZENG

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Journal of Tsinghua University(Science and Technology) ›› 2014, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (4) : 437-442.

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TCAM-efficient flow table mapping scheme for OpenFlow multiple-table pipelines

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Abstract

Flow-table based forwarding enables flexibility on the OpenFlow data plane. However, expanding the network functions results in explosive growth of the flow table size, so that it can not be stored in the limited TCAM in the switches, so the storage becomes a network bottleneck. This paper describes an OpenFlow multiple-table pipeline architecture that efficiently stores the flow table in the TCAM memories with an algorithm that maps a flow table to multiple tables for storage and look up. Simulations show that the algorithm reduces the TCAM usage for single table storage by 17%-95%, which is important for scalable designs of OpenFlow data planes.

Key words

OpenFlow / data plane / multiple flow tables / ternary content addressable memory

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Zhongjin LIU,Yong LI,Li SU,Depeng JIN,Lieguang ZENG. TCAM-efficient flow table mapping scheme for OpenFlow multiple-table pipelines[J]. Journal of Tsinghua University(Science and Technology). 2014, 54(4): 437-442

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