Chapter 12: Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned to program software-defined networks using Ox and NetKAT:

• Ox is our low-level platform for implementing OpenFlow controllers, developed in OCaml. You saw how to use it to analyze packets on an SDN controller, install rules in the data plane and monitor traffic statistics.

• NetKAT is a high-level domain-specific language for specifying SDN policies. In just a few, simple lines of code, you could specify forwarding policy and queries for multi-switch networks in a modular, compositional fashion. The Frenetic compiler (built using Ox, of course) compiled your high-level programs in to flow tables that are installed automatically in the data plane.

Still, there’s a lot more to the Frenetic environment than what you have seen in this tutorial. One way to get started finding out more is to dig further in to the code. For instance, you might look at Frenetic_NetKAT, which is the primary library that implements NetKAT. Take a look at the internal syntax of Frenetic in the Compiler Module and then move on to other libraries, including those that implement Mac Learning. The latter components will introduce you to the basics of how to construct your own dynamic policies in the Frenetic programming environment using NetCoreLib combined with OCaml’s Async library.

Have fun!

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