Design and Implementation of ForCES Protocol

[EN] This paper proposes the design and implementation of the ForCES protocol, specifically FP logical point of the ForCES architecture, which is strictly the communication between the CE (Control Element) and the FE (Forwarding Element). It is a flexible and reprogrammable architecture that is established within the specifications issued and defined by the ForCES working group, and consists of elaboration of a protocol that carries information between both elements. In order to comprobate the correct functioning of the implemented the ForCES protocol, is we provide a network testbed scenario, which consist an application client-server. Each device has equipped with the application which based on Java language, that allows the researcher to be able to compare the typical functionality of a conventional router with a router based in architecture ForCES. It allows taking advantage of the benefits of this architecture to reprogram different and new functionalities.Gonzalez Ramirez, PL.; Lloret, J.; Martínez Cordero, S.; Trujillo Arboleda, LC. (2017). Design and Implementation of ForCES Protocol. Network Protocols and Algorithms. 9(1-2):1-27. https://doi.org/10.5296/npa.v9i1-2.10943S12791-

Design and implementation of a prototype of the entity Control Element (CE) of the Architecture ForCES

[EN] This paper presents the designed an implementation of a prototype with the Forwarding and Control Element Separation (ForCES) Architecture. That is to say, which allows each of the elements to be improved separately and then interconnected through the ForCES protocol, even in remote locations. The Control Element (CE) is the logical entity that is part of the control plane and is responsible for managing Forwarding Elements (FE) of the data plane. The ForCES architecture allows you to see these two elements (the CE and the FE through the ForCES protocol) as a single Network Element (NE), even if they are located in remote sites each. To demonstrate this principle, a network testbed scenario was implemented, based on two Local Area Networks (LAN). The LAN 1, for the CEs and the LAN 2 for the FEs, once communicated through the ForCES protocol, the different LFBs configurations of the ARP, SNMP, RIP protocols were used to demonstrate their operation.Martínez Cordero, S.; Gonzalez Ramirez, PL.; Lloret, J.; Trujillo Arboleda, LC. (2017). Design and implementation of a prototype of the entity Control Element (CE) of the Architecture ForCES. Network Protocols and Algorithms. 9(3-4):1-30. https://doi.org/10.5296/npa.v9i3-4.12433S13093-

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-

Implementation and Evaluation of a Network Element Control Protocol

Tämä opinnäytetyö koostuu erään ohjaus- ja välityselementtien väliseen tiedonsiirtoon käytettävän verkkoelementin ohjausprotokollan toteutuksesta ja arvioinnista. Tätä ohjausprotokollaa käytetään verkkoelementin sisällä verkko-operaattorin runkoverkossa. Kirjoittaja on tutkinut kolmea yleisesti käytössä olevaa dynaamista verkkokytkimen ohjausprotokollaa ja yksi näistä on valittu toteutettavaksi tässä tutkimuksessa. Tämä kyseinen protokolla on forwarding and control element separation (ForCES). Euroopan Unionin seitsemännen puiteohjelman ETNA-projektissa on tehty IETF:n määrittelystä poikkeavia muutoksia ForCES-protokollaan: PATH-DATATLV- kerros poistettiin sekä muita TLV-tietorakenteita muutettiin projektin tarpeiden mukaisesti. ETNA on myös lisännyt ylimääräisiä ID-arvoja, tietotyyppejä, tapahtuma- ja tuloskoodeja sekä muita arvoja. Arvot on valittu niin, etteivät ne mene päällekkäin IETF:n ForCES määrittelyjen kanssa. Tässä tutkimuksessa tehty ohjelmistototeutus on C++-kirjasto, jossa on 31 luokkaa ja 15 436 riviä lähdekoodia. Ohjelmistokoodi on testattu kirjoittajan tekemällä testiohjelmalla ja se toimii ilman tunnettuja virhetoimintoja. Tutkimuksen arviointiosuus koostuu muistinvarauksen ja viestin muodostusajan mittaamisesta. Kilotavun mittaiset ja 185 TLV-tietorakennetta sisältävät testiviestit varasivat yli 500 % ylimääräistä muistia verrattuna viesten nettopituuteen. Tämän ylimääräisen muistinkäytön suhteellinen osuus viestien nettopituuteen verrattuna kuitenkin pienenee, samalla kun TLV-tietorakenteiden pituus kasvaa. Viestinmuodostuksen käsittelyaika kasvoi lineaarisesti, mutta mittauksissa havaittiin viestien käsittelyn alussa jonkin verran ylimääräistä käsittelyaikaa etenkin lyhyillä viesteillä, joissa oli vähän TLV-tietorakenteita. Suunnittelimme ja toteutimme Aalto-yliopistossa ohjauselementin ForCES-protokollan toteutuksen ja Ben Gurionin yliopisto Israelissa oli vastuussa välityselementin suunnittelusta ja toteutuksesta. Molemmat toteutukset yhdistettiin ja demonstroitiin yhdessä kehitettyä uutta runkoverkon mallia.This thesis consists of the implementation and evaluation of a network element control protocol that is used for the communication between the control element and the forwarding element in a network element in a network operator's core network. The author has investigated three commonly used dynamic switch control protocols and one of them is chosen to be implemented in this study. This protocol is the forwarding and control element separation (ForCES). In the EU 7th framework program's ETNA project, there has been done some modifications to the IETF specified ForCES protocol: the PATH-DATA-TLV layer was removed among other type-length-value (TLV) data structure modifications. ETNA has also added extra IDs, data types, event and result codes, and other values choosing them so that they do not overlap with the values in the IETF ForCES specification. The implementation done in this study is a C++ library with 31 classes and 15 436 lines of source code. The code was tested with a test program written by the author and is working without any known bugs. The evaluation part of the study consists of memory allocation and message construction time performance measurements. The test messages with one kilobyte length and 185 TLVs allocated over 500 % extra memory compared to the message network length. However, this overhead is proportional to the network length of the message and will decrease as the length of the TLVs increase. The processing time for the message construction was linearly increasing, but there was some offset time at the beginning of the message processing especially with short messages with a few TLVs. In Aalto University, we designed and implemented the control element implementation of the ForCES protocol and the Ben Gurion University was responsible for the design and implementation of the forwarding element. Both implementations were integrated together and there was demonstrated a new co-developed proof-of-concept core network model

An Analysis and Design of the Redirection Schema in ForCES

The idea of Forwarding and Control Element Separation has widely accepted by next generation network researchers, the regain attention of IETF (The Internet Engineering Task Force) ForCES (Forwarding and Control Element Separation) is the best proof. An IP tunnel-based redirection schema was proposed to solve the problem of routing protocol messages interaction between ForCES router and the external merchant routers. The technology of network virtualization is introduced to map network interface from ForCES FE (Forwarding Element) to CE (Control Element) which collaborating with the redirect schema

Diseño e implementación del protocolo ForCES

Este proyecto de grado propone la implementación del protocolo ForCES, el cual está centrado en la conexión del punto lógico FP de la arquitectura ForCES, y es estrictamente una comunicación entre el CE y el FE. Dicha estructura del protocolo está establecida dentro de las especificaciones emitidas y definidas por el grupo de trabajo ForCES, y consiste en formar un protocolo que transporte la información del plano de datos disponible en los FE y llevarlos al plano de control en el CE aprovechando la arquitectura flexible de ForCES. Este proyecto plantea la implementación del protocolo ForCES, sobre la arquitectura ForCES, a través de una simulación en Java que le permite al investigador tener la posibilidad de comparar funcionalidad típica de un enrutador convencional con el enrutador basado en la arquitectura ForCES que se plantea, y de esta manera aprovechar la ventaja de esta arquitectura para reprogramar dichas funcionalidades. Este proyecto busca que mediante un ejemplo básico de LFBs descubiertos por el CE e Informada por el FE, se pueda probar el funcionamiento del protocolo ForCES que los intercomunica, permitiendo comprobar que los datos que son enviados de un extremo a otro, bajo las condiciones expuestas en las especificaciones, son correctas y se han programado sin errores. En este programa de prueba el CE usa los diferentes tipos de topologías LFBs y construye diferentes funcionalidades con los atributos disponibles en los FEs, es importante aclarar que estas dos emulaciones están fuera del alcance de este proyecto, sin embargo las interfaces correspondientes están disponibles para continuar con su desarrollo.Magíster en Ingeniería ElectrónicaMaestrí