The talk will present an overview of the networking research at HPLabs. Most vendors like Cisco, HP and Juniper have launched ``open'' platform designs for routers and switches, allowing code from customers or third-party vendors to run on their proprietary hardware. An open platform needs a programming interface, to provide switchlets sufficient access to platform features without exposing too much detail. I will discuss the design of an abstraction layer and API to support portability between vendor platforms, isolation between switchlets and both the platform and other switchlets, high performance, and programming simplicity. Examples  in the areas of network power management and in-network processing that can  leverage network programmability of network comprising of such open platforms will conclude the talk.

Puneet Sharma is a Senior Research Scientist at HP Labs where he conducts research on Network Measurement and Monitoring, Wireless Networks, Quality of Service, and Overlay networks. Prior to joining the HP Labs in 1998, he received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Southern California. He also holds a B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi. His work on Mobile Collaborative Communities was featured in the New Scientist Magazine. Currently his research focuses on building programmable networks and QoS mechanisms for fabric convergence.

He has also participated in various standardization efforts. Recently he contributed to the UPnP's QoS Working Group efforts as co-author for QoSv3 standards. Earlier, he had co-authored the IETF standards' RFCs on multicast routing protocol PIM. Puneet was the Co-Chair of 13th IEEE LANMAN Workshop in April 2004.