Many promising networking research ideas in programmable networks never see the light of day. Yet, deploying research prototypes in production networks can help validate research ideas, improve them with faster feedback, uncover new research questions, and also ease the subsequent transition to practice. In this paper, we show how researchers can run and validate their research ideas in their own backyards---on their production campus networks---and we have seen that such a demonstrator can expedite the deployment of a research idea in practice to solve real network operation problems. We present P4Campus , a proof-of-concept that encompasses tools, an infrastructure design, strategies, and best practices---both technical and non-technical---that can help researchers run experiments against their programmable network idea in their own network. We use network tapping devices, packet brokers, and commodity programmable switches to enable running experiments to evaluate research ideas on a production campus network. We present several compelling data-plane applications as use cases that run on our campus and solve production network problems. By sharing our experiences and open-sourcing our P4 apps [28], we hope to encourage similar efforts on other campuses.

中文翻译：

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可编程网络的经验驱动研究

可编程网络中的许多有前途的网络研究想法从未出现过。然而，在生产网络中部署研究原型可以帮助验证研究想法，通过更快的反馈改进它们，发现新的研究问题，并简化随后的实践过渡。在本文中，我们展示了研究人员如何在他们自己的后院——在他们的生产校园网络上——运行和验证他们的研究想法，并且我们已经看到，这样的演示者可以在实践中加快研究想法的部署，以解决真实的网络运营问题。我们提出P4校园，一个包含工具、基础设施设计、策略和最佳实践（包括技术和非技术）的概念验证，可以帮助研究人员在他们自己的网络中针对他们的可编程网络理念进行实验。我们使用网络窃听设备、数据包代理和商品可编程交换机来运行实验，以评估生产园区网络上的研究想法。我们展示了几个引人注目的数据平面应用程序作为在我们的校园中运行并解决生产网络问题的用例。通过分享我们的经验和开源我们的 P4 应用程序 [28]，我们希望鼓励在其他校园进行类似的努力。