ReClick - A framework for network virtualization using programmable hardware

Although FPGAs have emerged as promising platforms for high performance network virtualization, these devices remain inaccessible to the larger networking research community due to the absence of user-friendly programming models. We present ReClick, a framework to efficiently develop dataplanes for network virtualization platforms that use reconfigurable hardware. We describe a hardware-agnostic programming model that allows developers with little or no FPGA knowledge to rapidly design and deploy virtual dataplanes without worrying about intricacies of the hardware platform. The framework exposes interfaces similar to the popular software router development framework, Click, and promotes design reuse.

ReClick has been validated on the NetFPGA 1G platform. An initial release of ReClick and the associated ANCS'2011 paper can be located at the following locations:

  • ReClick software
  • ReClick paper