Abstract:

In the article, the versatility of the Protocol-independent Packet Processor Programming (P4) language and the Portable Switch Architecture (PSA) is presented. Both elements have been designed for the construction of Software Defined Networks (SDNs). In typical SDN solutions, only the control plane and the data plane have been separated between two different devices, while ensuring data exchange between them using the OpenFlow protocol. The introduction of the P4 language and PSA architecture allows for defining the entire packet processing process in the data plane. To demonstrate the universality of P4 and PSA, the article presents a simplified implementation of an MQTT broker. It should be noted that the presented solution is not a typical application of P4 and PSA and serves only to indicate the versatility of the P4 language.