NetFPGA: A Tool for Network Research and Education

G. Watson, N. McKeown, M. Casado. "NetFPGA: A Tool for Network Research and Education," 2nd Workshop on Architecture Research using FPGA Platforms (WARFP), (February, 2006).

One line summary: This paper describes a hardware platform called NetFPGA that is intended to allow students and researchers quickly deploy and debug new networking hardware in an operational network.

Summary

This paper describes NetFPGA, a hardware platform that enables the deployment and development of networking hardware. The goal of this was originally to allow students to gain experience with the link and physical layer sides of networking. It later became interesting for use in network research. NetFPGA went through two versions, with the second improving upon the first in a number of ways. It has been used in several courses and is currently being tested for use in two research projects, Rate Control Protocol (RCP) and shunting for intrusion detection.

Critique

NetFPGA sounds like it would be fun to play with and I wish I could have taken a course that uses it. However I’m not sure why this paper is in the syllabus. I don’t really think it adds anything very useful.