• Speaker: Nate Foster (Cornell)
  • Date: November 2nd, 2012 (Friday)
  • Room: CIT 368
  • Title: "Abstractions for Network Update"
  • Abstract:
Configuration changes are a frequent source of instability in networks, leading to broken connections, forwarding loops, and access control violations. Even when the initial and final configurations are correct, the update process often steps through intermediate configurations which are not. This talk will introduce consistent network updates -- updates that are guaranteed to preserve well-defined behaviors when transitioning from one configuration to the next. I will present two distinct consistency levels, per-packet and per-flow; describe general mechanisms for implementing consistent updates in software-defined networks; and discuss how consistent updates can be leveraged to reduce the complexity of verifying the correctness of network control software.

Nate Foster is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. The goal of his research is developing abstractions and tools for building reliable software systems. He received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania, an MPhil in History and Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University, and a BA in Computer Science from Williams College. His honors include a Sloan Research Fellowship and Penn’s Morris and Dorothy Rubinoff award.