SmartNet: Bridging Performance and Realism in Network Emulation with SmartNICs
Network emulators are essential for testing and validating new networking solutions before deployment. In this work, we present SmartNet, a new hardware-based emulation framework that brings SmartNIC awareness to network experimentation. SmartNet enables realistic and scalable evaluation of offloading, host interaction, and in-network processing. Using a simple API interface, researchers can define and deploy topologies with multiple switches, hosts, and diverse link characteristics (e.g., bandwidth, latency, loss) to evaluate SmartNIC-driven architectures.
Authors
- Fabricio Rodríguez (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1165-2808)
- Chrysa Papagianni (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2665-6492)
- Gergely Pongrácz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5115-9973)
- Marcelo Caggiani Luizelli (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0537-3052)
- Francisco Germano Vogt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1467-7146)
- Christian Esteve Rothenberg (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3109-4305)
- Victor H. S. Lopes (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2335-2973)
Institutions
- Ericsson (Sweden) (SE)
- Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP) (BR)
- Telefonica Research and Development (ES)
- Universidade Federal do Pampa (BR)
- University of Amsterdam (NL)
Publication Details
- Published
- 2025-09-08
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1145/3744969.3748449
- Citations
- 2
- Primary Topic
- Software-Defined Networks and 5G
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 2.97
Funders
- Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
- Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
- Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico