Traffic Engineering

This paper describes a system for middleboxes that process application level data -- that is reconstructed TCP flows not packets. The system consists of three parts:
1) A language specific to middleboxes that can quickly express data formats and how to process them but in a "safe" way that allows middleboxes to co-exist on the same physical hardware.
2) An abstraction, the task graph, that breaks middlebox logic into small, parallelisable logical units (tasks) connected by channels through which data flows.
3) A system that allows the compiled code to execute in a performant way.

This paper considers the problem of balancing traffic across network egresses. It achieves a workable solution using a scalable packet market scheme which couples end-hosts controlling their own connection with an overall controller which can select routes appropriately for each flow.

The flows are balanced to seek paths which minimise loss.