Thursday, April 28th
9:00 AM-
A-201: System Development (Architectures/Software/Tools Track)
Paper Title: Simplifying SmartNIC System Testing

Paper Abstract: SmartNIC designs should be validated running not only back to back, but also under realistic worst case conditions encountered in today's data centers. Such validations also require workloads emulating actual applications rather than just simple packet blasters. However, building such system test environments in a laboratory is a huge undertaking. It involves operating a cluster of switches, learning NOSes, finding tools capable of recreating data center distributed applications, and then combining everything in a CI/CD pipeline. A better solution is needed that makes it easy to run repeatable experiments with different fabrics, real buffering/congestion behavior, and real workloads. Our approach simplifies the creation of system test environments by using a combination of an Open Network Experiments API and two emulators for Data Center Fabric and Data Flows. The result is an easy-to-use test bed that provides a reasonable facsimile of actual workloads and conditions.

Paper Author: Razvan Stan, Sr Engineering Manager, Keysight Technologies

Author Bio: Razvan Stan is a Sr Engineering Manager at Keysight Technologies, where he works on developing easy-to-use, flexible, and automated test environments. He has developed emulators that create realistic data center workloads, allow for simple device connections, and produce effects such as congestion for test purposes. He has also created an OpenAPI to simplify the specification of fabrics and workloads in a vendor-agnostic manner. He works constantly with developers and engineers to create user-oriented environments that allow continuous integration and development (CI/CD). Considered an expert in the test field, he holds 4 patents and has applied for 4 more.