A Network Emulator for High-Precision Latency Forwarding over Packet-Programmable Networks (Demo Paper)

In a companion paper [1], we introduced Latency-Based Forwarding (LBF) as a new approach to achieving stringent end-to-end latency objectives with precisely specified lower and upper bounds. In order to accomplish this, a new forwarding protocol is used that can carry latency objectives as part of packet metadata and take differentiated actions at network nodes depending on a packet’s remaining latency budget, its destination, and the latency encountered so far. LBF is intended to enable new emerging network applications such as Industry 4.0, haptic applications, and holographic-type communications which require support for corresponding high-precision network latency services that are not possible with current best-effort Internet or QoS mechanisms.This demo shows a near real-time, lightweight network emulator for LBF. Individual network nodes are emulated by separate cores on a host. As part of the demo, we vary the end-to-end latency objectives of multiple competing simultaneous flows and compare minimum, maximum, average packet latencies across different scenarios. This demonstrates the behavior and effectiveness of LBF and how it affects flows and packets.