This document proposes Stratos, a network-aware orchestration layer that treats middleboxes as first-class entities in the cloud. Stratos aims to integrate middleboxes more seamlessly, improve performance, and maximize efficiency. It uses techniques like network-aware placement of virtual machines and middleboxes, scaling based on application performance monitoring, and flow distribution that minimizes inter-rack traffic. The goal is to provide an easy way for tenants to deploy middleboxes with low complexity while optimizing resource utilization for providers.

3. Virtual Middleboxes as
First-Class Entities in the Cloud
Aaron Gember, Anand Krishnamurthy,
Saul St. John, and Aditya Akella
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4. Deploying Middleboxes Today
• Elastic compute and storage
• Limited add-on middlebox services
• Middlebox vendors are
providing VM images
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App
VM
App
VM
App
VM

5. • Manually piece together tunnels and traffic splitters
– Brittle and inflexible
• Goal: low complexity for tenants
Challenge: Integration
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6. • Scale based on CPU/memory
– Network significantly impacts performance
• Goal: high performance
Challenge: Performance
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7. • Distributed placement
– Over-utilized network and under-utilized compute
• Goals: minimize costs; support more tenants
Challenge: Efficiency
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& naïve flow distribution

8. Stratos (a.k.a. CloudMB)
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Network-aware orchestration
layer for middleboxes in clouds
VM Manager
Placement
Flow DistributionSoftware Switches
100
250470
360 680730
Scaling

9. Stratos Scaling
• Based on application performance
• Scaling trials along a sequence
– If ↓ Latency: Keep and try another
– Else: Discard and move on
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App
500 ms400 ms395 ms

10. Stratos Flow Distribution
• Minimizes inter-rack traffic using linear program
• Triggered following scaling, and periodically
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11. Demonstration
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12. Network-aware orchestration
layer for middleboxes in clouds
• Deployable by cloud providers or third parties
• Minimizes network interactions
• Maximizes efficiency for
tenants and providers
Stratos Summary
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Visit us in the exhibit hall!
http://stratos.cs.wisc.edu