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Learn about a novel approach to overcome the limitations of traditional ECMP (equal-cost multi-path) routing in data centers through this 17-minute conference presentation from NSDI '25. Discover how researchers from Tencent, University of Michigan, Tsinghua University, and Northwestern University developed programmable ECMP (P-ECMP) to address critical Precise Traffic Control (PTC) tasks that conflict with ECMP's inherent randomness. Explore the challenges faced when end hosts need to quickly reroute flows away from problematic switches or links, where traditional randomized hashing requires multiple trial-and-error attempts with unknown outcomes. Understand how P-ECMP leverages ECMP groups as a programming model, compiler, and runtime system that enables operators to supply high-level topology and policy descriptions while automatically generating PTC configurations for each switch. Examine the system's capability to allow end hosts to reconfigure specific flows with different PTC policies precisely and rapidly, addressing various critical network use cases. Review the comprehensive evaluation methodology including large-scale simulations and real-world deployment results from a production data center serving live user traffic, demonstrating the practical viability of this innovative traffic control solution.
