Declarative and Expressive Forwarding Optimizer
A new architecture
DEFO is a network controller that automatically translates high-level goals of operators into network configurations. By interacting directly with the optimization layer, DEFO exploits the connetivity layer to control the actual forwarding paths used for any traffic flow crossing the network.
Low congestion
DEFO leverages high connectivity redundancies by natively supporting even traffic splitting over multiple IGP shortest-paths (ECMP). This mechanism allows DEFO to provide efficient solution in terms of congestion.
Fast and Scalable
DEFO is able to provide users with efficient solutions within seconds even on networks with hundreds of nodes and tens of thousands of demands. DEFO can thus be used both offline and online.
Watch DEFO handling link-failures
This demo shows the online optimization of an artificial backbone network of 100 nodes. Black thick edges correspond to failed links. DEFO is used to compute paths such that each link uses at most 90% of its capacity. Each time DEFO succeeds, a new failure is randomly generated.
Try DEFO
The Java bytecode of DEFO is openly available here and can be used with the following command line (JVM 1.7 or later):
> java -jar defo.jar topologyFile demandsFile
Here follow instances on which DEFO has been evaluated:
| Instance | #Nodes | #Edges | #Demands | Topologies | Demands | Constraints |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| synth50 | 50 | 276 | 2449 | topology | demands | constraints |
| synth100 | 100 | 572 | 9817 | topology | demands | constraints |
| synth200 | 200 | 1044 | 37881 | topology | demands | constraints |
| rf1221 | 104 | 302 | 10695 | topology | demands | constraints |
| rf1239 | 315 | 1944 | 96057 | topology | demands | constraints |
| rf1755 | 87 | 322 | 7527 | topology | demands | constraints |
| rf3257 | 161 | 656 | 25486 | topology | demands | constraints |
| rf3967 | 79 | 294 | 6160 | topology | demands | constraints |
| rf6461 | 138 | 418 | 19740 | topology | demands | constraints |
Related publications
This publication describes DEFO and the two-layer architecture separating connectivity and optimization.
A Declarative and Expressive Approach to Control Forwarding Paths in Carrier-Grade Networks, ACM SIGCOMM 2015, London, 2015.
Internal algorithms and datastructures of DEFO are described in this publication. The proof that the problem solved by DEFO is NP-Hard is also included.
Solving Segment Routing Problems with Hybrid Constraint Programming Techniques, CP 2015, Cork, 2015.