Bluebird - High-performance SDN for Bare-metal Cloud Services

This course focuses on the design, implementation, and deployment of Bluebird, a high-performance network virtualization system for bare-metal cloud services. The learning outcomes include understanding the principles of network virtualization, designing high-performance data planes using programmable switch ASICs, and implementing scalable control planes for SDNs. The course teaches skills such as route caching, device abstraction, and architectural decoupling of switch-local agents from a remote controller. The teaching method involves sharing experiences from running bare-metal services on Azure and discussing the P4 data plane program used in Bluebird-enabled switches. The intended audience for this course includes network engineers, cloud service providers, and individuals interested in SDN and network virtualization technologies.