Click-UP: Toward the Software Upgrade of Click-Based Modular Network Function

A Click-based network function (NF) has significant advantages for pipeline development, including modularity, extensibility, and programmability. Despite these features, its internal architecture unfortunately not kept up with some specific problems of the software upgrade. To motivate our article, we analyzed a series use cases to identify limitations native Click. These include inefficiencies in modifying modules, integrating recovering states. bridge gap, present three novel enhancements Click upgrade (Click-UP) system: 1) modular state abstraction refines each type stateful operations as an atom operation decouples it from pipeline, letting separately managing logics stateless become practical; 2) essential module integration manages dependencies between avoiding shipping unnecessary modules neutral functionalities target NF; 3) local migration migrates needed states seamlessly old NF at memory. Our evaluation demonstrates that Click-UP reduces context code required modification by 12–81%, cutting down time 78–96% service disruption 76–93%, compared performance represented