Network Analysis with Parametric NetKAT

2026-07-10

AI Summary

This work addresses the need for efficiently answering enumeration queries—such as packet paths and fault-impact analyses—in network diagnosis and reasoning. To this end, it introduces Parametric NetKAT, the first extension of the NetKAT framework that incorporates parameters, thereby enabling a unified and efficient treatment of such problems. The language seamlessly integrates standard NetKAT with its relational and weighted variants, and leverages a formal semantics, automata-based compilation, and an assignment-collection algorithm to directly support enumerative queries over network models while providing rigorous correctness guarantees. Empirical evaluation on industrial-scale benchmarks demonstrates that Parametric NetKAT offers substantial practical utility and performance advantages.

Abstract

Network engineers often need to perform network diagnosis and inference tasks, which frequently require answers to enumeration questions such as "Which packets from the Internet arrive at host C?" or "Which single-link failures disconnect my network?" Parametric NetKAT is a new domain-specific language that combines elements of NetKAT, Relational NetKAT, and Weighted NetKAT into a single system and extends them with parameters, allowing users to pose such enumeration questions directly over network models. This paper presents the design and semantics of Parametric NetKAT and illustrates its utility through a series of examples. It shows how to compile Parametric NetKAT into NetKAT automata, develops new algorithms for efficiently collecting satisfying valuations, and proves the correctness of these procedures. Finally, it evaluates the performance of Parametric NetKAT on a collection of benchmarks drawn from industrial sources.

Problem

• network diagnosis
• enumeration queries
• network inference
• single-link failures
• packet reachability

Innovation

• Parametric NetKAT
• network verification
• enumeration queries
• formal semantics
• NetKAT automata