Scaling network services using programmable network devices

Over the past several years, one successful solution for managing huge amounts of data on the Internet concentrates critical computing resources in Internet data centers. An IDC collects computing resources and typically houses them in one physical location: a room, a building floor, or an entire building. Large enterprises that rely heavily on the Internet and e-commerce applications typically operate their own IDCs, while smaller companies may lease computing resources within an IDC owned and operated by a service provider. The NEon architecture, a nove l approach for implementing the network services that IDCs provide, is a paradigm shift away from special-purpose network devices. By employing new flow-handling mechanisms to merge heterogeneous network services into one system, NEon offers an integrated approach to architecting, operating, and managing network services.