vNS: a modular programmable virtual network switch

Virtual software switches are evolving: from simple communication facilities connecting virtual machines to the outside network, they are growing into complex subsystems supporting an increasing number of functionalities at multiple network layers. In line with recent trends introducing stateless and stateful processing in virtual switches, we present in this poster vNS, a modular programmable virtual network switch that enables transport stack offloading from the VM to the host, together with a number of transport and application layer functions. We detail the architecture of vNS and provide a preliminary evaluation.