Lambda the Ultimate

Frenetic is a Python-embedded combinator notation for writing the control software for OpenFlow software-defined networking switches.

Frenetic: A High-Level Language for OpenFlow Networks:

Most interfaces for programming network devices are defined at the low level of abstraction supported by the underlying hardware, which leads to complicated programs that are prone to errors. This paper proposes a high-level programming language for OpenFlow networks based on ideas originally developed in the functional programming community. Our language, called Frenetic, includes a rich pattern algebra for classifying packets, a “program like you see every packet” abstraction, and a run-time system that automatically generates the low-level packet-processing rules. We describe the design and implementation of Frenetic, and show how to use it to implement common management tasks.

Frenetic: A Network Programming Language:

This paper presents Frenetic, a high-level language for programming distributed collections of network switches. Frenetic provides a declarative query language for classifying and aggregating network traffic as well as a functional reactive combinator library for describing high-level packet-forwarding policies. Unlike prior work in this domain, these constructs are—by design—fully compositional, which facilitates modular reasoning and enables code reuse. This important property is enabled by Frenetic’s novel runtime system which manages all of the details related to installing, uninstalling, and querying low-level packet-processing rules on physical switches.

A Compiler and Run-time System for Network Programming Languages:

In this paper, we define a high-level, declarative language, called NetCore , for expressing packet-forwarding policies on SDNs. NetCore is expressive, compositional, and has a formal semantics. To ensure that a majority of packets are processed efficiently on switches—instead of on the controller—we present new compilation algorithms for NetCore and couple them with a new run-time system that issues rule installation commands and traffic-statistics queries to switches. Together, the compiler and run-time system generate efficient rules whenever possible and outperform the simple, manual techniques commonly used to program SDNs today. In addition, the algorithms we develop are generic, assuming only that the packet-matching capabilities available on switches satisfy some basic algebraic laws.