HInterOp

There has been an increasing interest in using hardware to implement network protocols, such as in ultra-high-speed networks (e.g., 40Gbps, 100Gbps) for scientific data movement. This is mainly because the processor overhead caused by the current software network protocol implementations increases considerably as the network speeds increase. However, there are usually big differences between software and hardware implementations for the same network protocol due to the unique hardware design constraints. Therefore, it is critical to test the interoperability between heterogeneous network protocol implementations to make sure that they can correctly interact with each other. This project proposes a new class of testing methods to efficiently and systematically check the interoperability of emerging heterogeneous network protocol implementations under two types of packet parameters: packet dynamic parameters (e.g., packet delay and loss), and packet semantics parameters (e.g., formats and meanings of packet fields), as different network protocol implementations communicate and interact with one another using packets.

Documents

• Nianhang Hu, Witawas Srisa-an, and Lisong Xu, “Using Symbolic Execution to Analyze Hardware TCP/IP Stacks based on HLS Development”, Verification Futures Conference, Austin, TX, September 2024 [Slides]

• Tianqi Fang, Lisong Xu, and Witawas Srisa-an, “Efficient Verification of Timing-Related Network Functions in High-Speed Hardware”, in Proceedings of IEEE INFOCOM, May 2023 [Paper] [GitHub]

• Tianqi Fang, Lisong Xu, Witawas Srisa-an, and Jay Patel, “Exploration and Evaluation of the Architectural Design Space of Bandwidth Estimation in ProgHW/SW-based Clouds”, in Proceedings of Passive and Active Measurement Conference (PAM), March, 2023 [Paper] [GitHub]

• Tianqi Fang, “Evaluation and Verification of ProgHW/SW-based Network Functions in Clouds”, PhD Dissertation, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, March 2023

Contributors

Prof. Lisong Xu

Prof. Witawas Srian-an

PhD Students

• Tianqi Fang

MS Students

• Nianhang Hu

Undergraduate Students

• Jay Patel
• Coby Christiansen
• Tate Koziol
• Marie Zhussupo

Acknowledgement

This project is supported in part by NSF CNS