XOR-based Source Routing

Abstract: We introduce a XOR-based source routing (XSR) scheme as a novel approach to enable fast forwarding and low-latency communications. XSR uses linear encoding operation to both 1)~build the path labels of unicast and multicast data transfers; 2)~perform fast computational efficient routing decisions compared to standard table lookup procedure without any packet modification all along the path. XSR specifically focuses on decreasing the complexity of forwarding router operations. This allows packet switches (e.g, link-layer switch or router) to perform only simple linear operations over a binary vector label which embeds the path. XSR provides the building blocks to speed up the forwarding plane and can be applied to different data planes such as MPLS or IPv6. Compared to recent approaches based on modular arithmetic, XSR computes the smallest label possible and presents strong scalable properties allowing to be deployed over any kind of core vendor or datacenter networks. At last but not least, the same computed label can be used interchangeably to cross the path forward or reverse in the context of unicast communication.