Optimizing the reaction to network events, which is critical in tasks such as clock synchronization, multicast, and routing, becomes increasingly challenging as networks grow larger. To improve the reaction time compared to centralized solutions, the theory community has made significant progress in the design of message-passing algorithms that leverage all nodes for distributed computation, and the advent of programmable switches makes it now possible to materialize them. We propose FRANCIS, a framework and associated libraries for running message-passing algorithms on programmable switches. It features primitives that allow easy integration of such algorithms for quickly reacting to network events while optimizing resource consumption. We use FRANCIS to implement event reaction solutions that improve clock synchronization, source-routed multicast, and routing and demonstrate up to 18x reduction in reaction time.

翻译：优化对网络事件的反应在时钟同步、组播和路由等任务中至关重要，但随着网络规模的扩大，这一挑战日益严峻。为缩短相较于集中式解决方案的反应时间，理论界在设计利用所有节点进行分布式计算的消息传递算法方面取得了重要进展，而可编程交换机的出现使得实现这些算法成为可能。我们提出FRANCIS——一个在可编程交换机上运行消息传递算法的框架及相关库。其核心特性是提供可便捷集成此类算法的原语，从而在优化资源消耗的同时实现对网络事件的快速响应。我们运用FRANCIS实现了事件响应解决方案，改进了时钟同步、源路由组播及路由机制，实验表明反应时间最高可缩短18倍。