Project Grant 2426030

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $299,686 Project Grant under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CFDA 47.070) program to the University of Connecticut. The grant funding will support a 3-year collaborative research project focused on developing "consolidated data planes" - efficient tools and algorithms to automatically manage the deployment and resource optimization of multiple co-existing network functions (NFs) on network devices. The project aims to reduce the operational costs and complexity for network operators by enabling them to efficiently handle the simultaneous use of various NFs, which are crucial for managing networks and enhancing user experience. The research will be conducted at the University of Connecticut and the University of California, Santa Cruz, with the consolidated data plane programs to be fully implemented and evaluated on a Tofino switch platform as well as a heterogeneous devices platform on CloudLab. This project has the potential to introduce a new research direction in programmable data plane algorithms that could impact network algorithm research, while also resulting in the development of open-source tools to effectively manage co-existing network functions.