Automatic provisioning in multi-domain software defined networking

Multi-domain Software Defined Networking (SDN) is the extension of the SDN paradigm to multi-domain networking and the interconnection of different administrative domains. By utilising SDN in the core telecommunication networks, benefits are found including improved traffic flow control, fast route updates and the potential for routing centralisation across domains. The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) was designed three decades ago, and efforts to redesign interdomain routing that would include a replacement or upgrade to the existing BGP have yet to be realised. For the near real-time flow control provided by SDN, the domain boundary presents a challenge that is difficult to overcome when utilising existing protocols. Replacing the existing gateway mechanism, that provides routing updates between the different administrative domains, with a multi-domain centralised SDN-based solution may not be supported by the network operators, so it is a challenge to identify an approach that works within this constraint. In this research, BGP was studied and selected as the inter-domain SDN communication protocol, and it was used as the baseline protocol for a novel framework for automatic multi-domain SDN provisioning. The framework utilises the BGP UPDATE message with Communities and Extended Communities as the attributes for message exchange. A new application called Inter-Domain Provisioning of Routing Policy in ONOS (INDOPRONOS), for the framework implementation, was developed and tested. This application was built as an ONOS controller application, which collaborated with the existing ONOS SDN-IP application. The framework implementation was tested to verify the information exchange mechanism between domains, and it successfully carried out the provisioning actions that are triggered by that exchanged information. The test results show that the framework was successfully verified. The information carried inside the two attributes can successfully be transferred between domains, and it can be used to trigger INDOPRONOS to create and install new alternative intents to override the default intents of the ONOS controller. The intents installed by INDOPRONOS immediately change the route of the existing connection, which demonstrated that the correct request sent from the other domain, can carry out a modification in network settings inside a domain. Finally, the framework was tested using a bandwidth on demand use case. In this use case, a customer network administrator can immediately change the network service bandwidth which was provided by the service provider, without any intervention from the service provider administrator, based on an agreed-predefined configuration setting. This ability will provide benefits for both customer and service provider, in terms of customer satisfaction and network operations efficiency