SDN management layer: design requirements and future direction

Computer networks are becoming more and more complex and difficult to manage. The research community has been expending a lot of efforts to come up with a general management paradigm that is able to hide the details of the physical infrastructure and enable flexible network management. Software Defined Networking (SDN) is such a paradigm that simplifies network management and enables network innovations. In this survey paper, by reviewing existing SDN management layers (platforms), we identify the general common management architecture for SDN networks, and further identify the design requirements of the management layer that is at the core of the architecture. We also point out open issues and weaknesses of existing SDN management layers. We conclude with a promising future direction for improving the SDN management layer.This work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF grant CNS-0963974)

DISCO: Distributed Multi-domain SDN Controllers

Modern multi-domain networks now span over datacenter networks, enterprise networks, customer sites and mobile entities. Such networks are critical and, thus, must be resilient, scalable and easily extensible. The emergence of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) protocols, which enables to decouple the data plane from the control plane and dynamically program the network, opens up new ways to architect such networks. In this paper, we propose DISCO, an open and extensible DIstributed SDN COntrol plane able to cope with the distributed and heterogeneous nature of modern overlay networks and wide area networks. DISCO controllers manage their own network domain and communicate with each others to provide end-to-end network services. This communication is based on a unique lightweight and highly manageable control channel used by agents to self-adaptively share aggregated network-wide information. We implemented DISCO on top of the Floodlight OpenFlow controller and the AMQP protocol. We demonstrated how DISCO's control plane dynamically adapts to heterogeneous network topologies while being resilient enough to survive to disruptions and attacks and providing classic functionalities such as end-point migration and network-wide traffic engineering. The experimentation results we present are organized around three use cases: inter-domain topology disruption, end-to-end priority service request and virtual machine migration

Expanded Combinatorial Designs as Tool to Model Network Slicing in 5G

The network slice management function (NSMF) in 5G has a task to configure the network slice instances and to combine network slice subnet instances from the new-generation radio access network and the core network into an end-to-end network slice instance. In this paper, we propose a mathematical model for network slicing based on combinatorial designs such as Latin squares and rectangles and their conjugate forms. We extend those designs with attributes that offer different levels of abstraction. For one set of attributes we prove a stability Lemma for the necessary conditions to reach a stationary ergodic stage. We also introduce a definition of utilization ratio function and offer an algorithm for its maximization. Moreover, we provide algorithms that simulate the work of NSMF with randomized or optimized strategies, and we report the results of our implementation, experiments and simulations for one set of attributes.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Acces

Packet forwarding for heterogeneous technologies for integrated fronthaul/backhaul

Proceeding of: 2016 European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC)To meet the future mobile user demand at a reduced cost, operators are looking at solutions such as C-RAN and different functional splits to decrease the cost of deploying and maintaining cell sites. The use of these technologies forces operators to manage two physically separated networks, one for backhaul and one for fronthaul. To solve this issue, transport networks for 5G will carry both fronthaul and backhaul traffic operating over heterogeneous data plane technologies. Such an integrated fronthaul/backhaul (denoted as 5G-Crosshaul) transport network will be software-controlled to adapt to the fluctuating capacity demand of the new generation air interfaces. Based on a proposed data- and control-plane architecture for 5G-Crosshaul, we propose a frame format common to both fronthaul and backhaul traffic as well as a corresponding abstraction of the forwarding behavior of the network elements. The common frame format and the forwarding abstraction define the information to be exchanged at the southbound interface (SBI) of the 5G-Crosshaul Control Infrastructure (XCI). This paper derives requirements for the SBI from 5G use cases.The authors of this paper have been sponsored in part by the project H2020-ICT-2014-2 “5G-Crosshaul”: The 5G integrated fronthaul/backhaul” (671598

Optimization of open flow controller placement in software defined networks

The world is entering into the era of Big Data where computer networks are an essential part. However, the current network architecture is not very convenient to configure such leap. Software defined network (SDN) is a new network architecture which argues the separation of control and data planes of the network devices by centralizing the former in high level, centralised devices and efficient supervisors, called controllers. This paper proposes a mathematical model that helps optimizing the locations of the controllers within the network while minimizing the overall cost under realistic constrains. Our method includes finding the minimum cost of placing the controllers; these costs are the network latency, controller processing power and link bandwidth. Different types of network topologies have been adopted to consider the data profile of the controllers, links of controllers and locations of switches. The results showed that as the size of input data increased, the time to find the optimal solution also increased in a non-polynomial time. In addition, the cost of solution is increased linearly with the input size. Furthermore, when increasing allocating possible locations of the controllers, for the same number of switches, the cost was found to be less

A Survey on the Contributions of Software-Defined Networking to Traffic Engineering

Since the appearance of OpenFlow back in 2008, software-defined networking (SDN) has gained momentum. Although there are some discrepancies between the standards developing organizations working with SDN about what SDN is and how it is defined, they all outline traffic engineering (TE) as a key application. One of the most common objectives of TE is the congestion minimization, where techniques such as traffic splitting among multiple paths or advanced reservation systems are used. In such a scenario, this manuscript surveys the role of a comprehensive list of SDN protocols in TE solutions, in order to assess how these protocols can benefit TE. The SDN protocols have been categorized using the SDN architecture proposed by the open networking foundation, which differentiates among data-controller plane interfaces, application-controller plane interfaces, and management interfaces, in order to state how the interface type in which they operate influences TE. In addition, the impact of the SDN protocols on TE has been evaluated by comparing them with the path computation element (PCE)-based architecture. The PCE-based architecture has been selected to measure the impact of SDN on TE because it is the most novel TE architecture until the date, and because it already defines a set of metrics to measure the performance of TE solutions. We conclude that using the three types of interfaces simultaneously will result in more powerful and enhanced TE solutions, since they benefit TE in complementary ways.European Commission through the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (GN4) under Grant 691567 Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under the Secure Deployment of Services Over SDN and NFV-based Networks Project S&NSEC under Grant TEC2013-47960-C4-3-

Building Programmable Wireless Networks: An Architectural Survey

In recent times, there have been a lot of efforts for improving the ossified Internet architecture in a bid to sustain unstinted growth and innovation. A major reason for the perceived architectural ossification is the lack of ability to program the network as a system. This situation has resulted partly from historical decisions in the original Internet design which emphasized decentralized network operations through co-located data and control planes on each network device. The situation for wireless networks is no different resulting in a lot of complexity and a plethora of largely incompatible wireless technologies. The emergence of "programmable wireless networks", that allow greater flexibility, ease of management and configurability, is a step in the right direction to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings of the wireless networks. In this paper, we provide a broad overview of the architectures proposed in literature for building programmable wireless networks focusing primarily on three popular techniques, i.e., software defined networks, cognitive radio networks, and virtualized networks. This survey is a self-contained tutorial on these techniques and its applications. We also discuss the opportunities and challenges in building next-generation programmable wireless networks and identify open research issues and future research directions.Comment: 19 page