ONCache - A Cache-Based Low-Overhead Container Overlay Network

Learn about ONCache, a novel cache-based container overlay network solution designed to eliminate performance overhead while maintaining flexibility and compatibility in this 16-minute conference presentation from NSDI '25. Discover how researchers from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Broadcom analyzed the kernel data path of overlay networks to identify repetitive computational overhead and developed an innovative caching approach to address these inefficiencies. Explore the technical implementation of ONCache using extended Berkeley Packet Filter (eBPF) with just 524 lines of code, integrated as an Antrea plugin, which enables containers to achieve networking performance comparable to bare metal systems. Examine the impressive performance improvements demonstrated through extensive evaluation, including 12% throughput enhancement and 36% improvement in request-response transaction rates for TCP traffic, with even greater gains for UDP, while significantly reducing per-packet CPU overhead and benefiting popular distributed applications.