Multimodal Multitask Control Plane Verification Framework

Modern networks are susceptible to configuration errors, such as misconfigurations and policy conflicts due to the complex interactions of diverse devices through various protocols. Control plane verification offers an effective solution to prevent these errors. However, existing tools face several challenges: (i) prolonged verification times, (ii) the verification of only specific policies, and (iii) poor robustness against node and link failures. To address these issues, we propose a control plane verification framework based on a multimodal multitask learning model. This framework enables simultaneous verification of multiple policies directly from various network configuration files. The learning model utilizes modality fusion techniques to capture both topology-related and traffic-related network features. It is trained on datasets augmented with the failure model to enhance robustness against failures. We compare our framework with three state-of-the-art verification tools: Minesweeper, Hoyan, and Tiramisu. Our evaluation shows that our framework is 2600 times faster than Minesweeper, twice as fast as Hoyan, and 19 times faster than Tiramisu, while maintaining 100% verification accuracy. Furthermore, our framework excels in verifying traffic-related network policies and remains effective even under node and link failures.