NetVRM - Virtual Register Memory for Programmable Networks

Explore a 16-minute conference talk from USENIX NSDI '22 that introduces NetVRM, a novel network management system enabling dynamic register memory sharing among multiple concurrent applications on programmable networks. Learn about the virtual register memory abstraction, which allows applications to share data plane register memory while abstracting underlying complexities. Discover how NetVRM's default memory allocation algorithm leverages the principle of diminishing returns on additional memory. Examine the P4VRM extension for developing applications with virtual register memory and the compiler for generating data plane programs and control plane APIs. Gain insights into testbed experiments demonstrating NetVRM's versatility across various applications and its utility-based dynamic allocation policy's superior performance compared to static resource allocation, improving mean satisfaction ratios by 1.6–2.2× under diverse workloads.