August 21, 2024 | 8:00am Pacific
A key barrier to the faster adoption of programmable data planes (e.g., P4 switches, SmartNICs, end-hosts) is the lack of engaging training materials. This NSF Cybertraining project aims to address this challenge by developing hands-on virtual labs (vLabs) for online instruction. These vLabs will be deployed on FABRIC, an NSF-funded international infrastructure for research at scale, and on the Academic Cloud, a training and research cloud system maintained by the University of South Carolina. The team has already created approximately 30 vLabs on BMv2, the P4 software switch. The project will now focus on open-source technologies related to SmartNICs and end-host stacks (e.g., PNA, P4-DPDK, P4TC, P4-eBPF, etc.). The developed vLabs will be open-source and available to the community. Learners will be provided with detailed laboratory manuals and access to the training platforms, which are accessible from the Internet using a regular web browser (no SSH or installations required).
Presenters
Elie Kfoury, University of South Carolina
Jorge Crichigno, University of South Carolina