The DOI matches its Crossref record.
Localized Explanations for Automatically Synthesized Network Configurations
Open accessAbstract
Network synthesis simplifies network management by automatically generating distributed configurations that fulfill high-level intents. However, typical network synthesizers operate as monolithic algorithms, obscuring the internal workings of the synthesis process and showing no clear connection between the generated configurations and the global intents. Given the critical role of networks as infrastructure, it is crucial for network operators to understand the synthesized configurations to establish trust in these automatic tools. To address this challenge, we propose using subspecifications localized to each component in the network topology to enhance the interpretability of network synthesis. These subspecifications provide insights into the workings of synthesizers by connecting each component's functionalities with the global configuration intents.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“It exposes observables that can be measured across tasks, traces, and deployment stages [43], [79], [107].”
From Large language models for agentic NetOps and AIOps: Architectures, evaluation, and safety (2027) · cites this paper as [107]
In the citing paper
“This follows established evaluation practice, where robustness, calibration, and efficiency are central in high-stakes deployment [107], [162], [163].”
From Large language models for agentic NetOps and AIOps: Architectures, evaluation, and safety (2027) · cites this paper as [107]
Citations
Cites
No references could be resolved yet.
Research works printed but not linked: 28
- 10.1145/3386367.3431304 · DOI
- Anubhavnidhi Abhashkumar, Aaron Gember-Jacobson, and Aditya Akella. 2020. Tiramisu: Fast multilayer network verification. In 17th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 20). 201--219.
- Timothy Alberdingk Thijm, Ryan Beckett, Aarti Gupta, and David Walker. 2023. Modular control plane verification via temporal invariants. Proceedings of the ACM on Programming Languages 7, PLDI (2023), 50--75.
- 10.1145/3098822.3098834 · DOI · Paper page
- 10.1145/2934872.2934909 · DOI
- 10.1145/3062341.3062367 · DOI · Paper page
- Rüdiger Birkner, Tobias Brodmann, Petar Tsankov, Laurent Vanbever, and Martin Vechev. 2021. Metha: Network verifiers need to be correct too!. In 18th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 21). 99--113.
- Rüdiger Birkner, Dana Drachsler-Cohen, Laurent Vanbever, and Martin Vechev. 2020. {Config2Spec}: Mining network specifications from network configurations. In 17th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 20). 969--984.
- 10.1145/3603269.3604866 · DOI · Paper page
- 10.1145/2934872.2934910 · DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-642-35873-9_10 · DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-319-63390-9_14 · DOI · Paper page
- Ahmed El-Hassany, Petar Tsankov, Laurent Vanbever, and Martin Vechev. 2018. {NetComplete}: Practical {Network-Wide} configuration synthesis with autocompletion. In 15th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 18). 579--594.
- Ari Fogel, Stanley Fung, Luis Pedrosa, Meg Walraed-Sullivan, Ramesh Govindan, Ratul Mahajan, and Todd Millstein. 2015. A general approach to network configuration analysis. In 12th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 15). 469--483.
- 10.1145/1081706.1081713 · DOI · Paper page
- 10.1145/3373360.3380831 · DOI
- 10.1145/3545945.3569785 · DOI · Paper page
- 10.1145/3626111.3628194 · DOI
- 10.1145/3622874 · DOI
- Lauren Pick. 2022. Scaling Automatic Modular Verification. Princeton University.
- Sivaramakrishnan Ramanathan, Ying Zhang, Mohab Gawish, Yogesh Mundada, Zhaodong Wang, Sangki Yun, Eric Lippert, Walid Taha, Minlan Yu, and Jelena Mirkovic. 2023. Practical intent-driven routing configuration synthesis. In 20th USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation (NSDI 23). 629--644.
- 10.1145/3501385.3543957 · DOI · Paper page
- 10.1145/3603269.3604842 · DOI
- 10.1145/3387514.3406217 · DOI
- 10.1145/3544216.3544264 · DOI
- 10.1145/3411764.3445646 · DOI
- 10.1145/2043556.2043584 · DOI
- 10.1145/1807167.1807234 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Large language models for agentic NetOps and AIOps: Architectures, evaluation, and safety
Bilal, M., Crowcroft, J., Wang, R., Xu, X., & Dustdar, S. (2027) · Computer Science Review · doi:10.1016/j.cosrev.2026.101075 · Cited by 10
Metadata
- Authors
- Nazari, A., Zhang, Y., Raghothaman, M., & Chen, H.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern California (US)
- ShanghaiTech University (CN)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2024-11-18
- Pages
- 52-59
- OpenAlex
- W4404239633
- Cited by
- 5
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5
- FWCI
- 2.19
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks (HotNets) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- NSF (National Science Foundation) (CCF #2124431 CCF #2107261, CCF #2146518)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Software-Defined Networks and 5G
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Mobile Agent-Based Network Management
- Keywords
- network synthesis, explainable AI, interpretability
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Localized Explanations for Automatically Synthesized Network Configurations. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1145/3696348.3696888
- The paper
- Nazari, A., Zhang, Y., Raghothaman, M., & Chen, H. (2024). Localized Explanations for Automatically Synthesized Network Configurations. Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks. https://doi.org/10.1145/3696348.3696888
