We are announcing the first ALIEN project software release. The software is part of the HAL implementation on ATCA hardware platform. The eXtensible DataPath Daemon is a multi-platform and multi-OF-version open-source datapath built focusing in performance and extensibility.

xDPD is meant to support several platforms, currently with OF v1.2 support (see Openflow support for upcoming OF versions), and is natively supporting datapath virtualization (Logical Switches). xDPD aims to be extensible in the following areas:

• Support for new platforms (Network processors, FPGAs, ASICs..)
• Support for new OpenFlow versions (without breaking or disabling existing ones!)
• New Openflow extension (header matches, actions…)
• New software matching algorithms (flow_mod lookup)
• Support multiple management interfaces (CLI, OFConfig, Netconf…)

xDPD was written from scratch and is not related to openvswitch or other libraries. xDPD is a pure Openflow switch and performs the forwarding in software, hardware, or any combination of software and hardware, depending on the platform. It is based on ROFL library for Openflow endpoint management and ROFL-pipeline in the pure forwarding plane. We work on OCTEON, Broadcom and Intel port, the x86 code is Open Source. (for the rest, we can find arrangements among partners, but for the outside this is the message we would like to give)

The ALIEN project consortium has agreed during the NetFPGA spring camp to put a NetFPGA port as one of the hardware ports to xDPD.