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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Zhu, Di, Chen, Jianxi, Kim, Hyojoon
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09809
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author Zhu, Di
Chen, Jianxi
Kim, Hyojoon
author_facet Zhu, Di
Chen, Jianxi
Kim, Hyojoon
contents In-network machine learning enables real-time classification directly on network hardware, offering consistently low inference latency. However, current solutions are limited by strict hardware constraints, scarce on-device resources, and poor usability, making them impractical for ML developers and cloud operators. To this end, we propose ACORN, an end-to-end system that automates the distributed deployment of practical machine learning models across the network. ACORN provides a fully automated pipeline that loads and deploys Python ML models on network devices using an optimized deployment plan from an ILP planner. To support larger models under hardware constraints and allow runtime programmability, ACORN adopts a novel data plane representation for Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machine models. We implement ACORN prototype in P4 and run it on real programmable hardware. Our evaluation shows ACORN can deploy classification ML models with 2-4x more features than state-of-the-art solutions, while imposing negligible overhead on network performance and traffic. We will make our data plane program, model translator, optimizer, and all related scripts publicly available.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_09809
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towards Practical and Usable In-network Classification
Zhu, Di
Chen, Jianxi
Kim, Hyojoon
Networking and Internet Architecture
In-network machine learning enables real-time classification directly on network hardware, offering consistently low inference latency. However, current solutions are limited by strict hardware constraints, scarce on-device resources, and poor usability, making them impractical for ML developers and cloud operators. To this end, we propose ACORN, an end-to-end system that automates the distributed deployment of practical machine learning models across the network. ACORN provides a fully automated pipeline that loads and deploys Python ML models on network devices using an optimized deployment plan from an ILP planner. To support larger models under hardware constraints and allow runtime programmability, ACORN adopts a novel data plane representation for Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machine models. We implement ACORN prototype in P4 and run it on real programmable hardware. Our evaluation shows ACORN can deploy classification ML models with 2-4x more features than state-of-the-art solutions, while imposing negligible overhead on network performance and traffic. We will make our data plane program, model translator, optimizer, and all related scripts publicly available.
title Towards Practical and Usable In-network Classification
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.09809