Re: [Coin] Draft minutes - COINRG interim meeting - 2019-06-07

[<[e-mail]>]

 

From: Coin <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Schooler, Eve M
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2019 3:29 AM
To: [e-mail]
Cc: Schooler, Eve M <[e-mail]>; Marie-Jose Montpetit
<[e-mail]>; Hejianfei (Jeffrey) <[e-mail]>
Subject: [Coin] Draft minutes - COINRG interim meeting - 2019-06-07

 


P4 Hackathon

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Marc: As a marketing person, sees a hackathon as having two objectives: 1)
promote ideas and 2) attract people to participate in the execution of those
ideas. Could call it a hackathon focused on a programmable forwarding plane.

However, need to make it interesting, yet the technology should not be too
broad. In the case of Noviflow, we've been developing programmable
forwarding planes for 7 years. We have a lot of experienced engineers who
know how to use the Barefoot development tools. Therefore the hackathon
could basically use Barefoot's toolkit to do the exercises. In contrast to
what was done in Boston, have a suggestion on areas for things to look into.
Example: take a look at the intimate connection between forwarding plane and
application and services, e.g., ask the students to accurately test the
latency of services, which would be a specific target so can be delivered
within the scope of 2 days. Contrary to the Boston P4 hackathon, have more
of a unified environment, have experts from NoviFlow provide assistance so
they can focus on the idea creation, not on the tools.

 

<hs> Boston hackathon, which I attended for the whole day, did have a
unified environment - all of us used p4lang/p4c (open-source P4 compiler).
All of us in Boston who wrote P4 programs hit the ground running with
p4lang/p4c.  Thus, even, we spent time on ideas, not tools.   We had over 19
years of data plane programming experience at Boston.  MNK Consulting
(http://mnkcg.com ) with > 13 years of Cisco pxf, Cisco QFP,  Cavium Xpliant
data planes, and P4 experience since Fall 1996.  Juniper was there with 6
years data plane programming.  Now, MNK Consulting has Barefoot Tofino
experience as well - I am working remotely on Saturday and available for
help  via the P4 Slack channel (userid: Hemant).

 

I see a problem with Barefoot's Tofino tools chain.  For example, there are
20 of us at the P4 hackathon.  Each one of us would like the Tofino tools
chains installed on our laptops.  How would NoviFlow help with that before
the hackathon?  Or will NoviFlow provide 20 machines with Tofino tools chain
built and ready for use?  Sharing machines slows down productivity.  What if
some of us are remote - how do we login to the machines remotely?  I have
already asked about NDA issues with Barefoot.

 

In contrast, if one uses the p4lang/p4c, we have no external dependency and
start writing P4 programs immediately. P4lang/p4c also includes a tools
chain to test using packets.   I suggest to use either environment and crank
out P4 code.  

 

We should get more ideas - please add them to the wiki:
https://trac.ietf.org/trac/ietf/meeting/wiki/105hackathon  

 

Hemant