Currently, we have witnessed a myriad of solutions that benefit from programmable hardware. The 5G Core (5GC) can and should also benefit from such paradigm to offload certain functions to the dataplane. In this work, we designed and implemented a P4-based solution for traffic identification and chaining using the Netronome Agilo SmartNIC. The solution here presented is deployed in-between the RAN and UPF (User Plane Function) so that traffic coming from the RAN is identified and chained using SRv6 based on different rules defined by the control plane. The traffic identification and the construction of the SRv6 list of segments are done entirely in the SmartNIC. A minimalist Proof-of-Concept (PoC) was deployed and evaluated to show that this function is perfectly capable to build service function chainings in a transparent and efficient way.

中文翻译：

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当 SRv6 遇到 5G 核心网：SmartNIC 中网络服务链功能的实现和部署

目前，我们见证了无数受益于可编程硬件的解决方案。5G 核心 (5GC) 可以而且应该从这种范式中受益，将某些功能卸载到数据平面。在这项工作中，我们使用 Netronome Agilo SmartNIC 设计并实施了基于 P4 的流量识别和链接解决方案。此处介绍的解决方案部署在 RAN 和 UPF（用户平面功能）之间，以便根据控制平面定义的不同规则，使用 SRv6 识别和链接来自 RAN 的流量。流量识别和 SRv6 段列表的构建完全在 SmartNIC 中完成。部署并评估了一个极简的概念验证 (PoC)，以表明该功能完全有能力以透明和高效的方式构建服务功能链。