Computer networks have been traditionally configured by humans using command-line interfaces. Some network abstractions have emerged in the last 10 years, but there is no easy way of comparing them to each other objectively. Therefore, there is no consensus in the industry of what direction modern network abstractions should take, and the adoption of these abstractions lags as a consequence. In this paper I propose a comparison framework using metrics derived from graph structures to evaluate the simplicity, efficiency, and effectiveness of different network abstraction models. The result of this comparison is that while some of the existing network abstractions are quite efficient to store network policy (such as the Kubernetes or the Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure models), others (notably public cloud) are still very infrastructure-centric and suffer from excessive complexity.

翻译：计算机网络传统上依赖命令行界面由人工配置。过去十年间虽涌现出若干网络抽象方案，但缺乏客观比较不同方案的简易方法。因此业界对现代网络抽象的发展方向尚未形成共识，导致这些抽象方案的采用进程滞后。本文提出一种基于图结构衍生度量的比较框架，用于评估不同网络抽象模型的简洁性、效率与有效性。比较结果表明：部分现有网络抽象（如Kubernetes与Cisco应用中心基础设施模型）在存储网络策略方面相当高效，而其他模型（尤其是公有云方案）仍高度偏重基础设施，存在过度复杂的问题。