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-

SCOR: Software-defined Constrained Optimal Routing Platform for SDN

A Software-defined Constrained Optimal Routing (SCOR) platform is introduced as a Northbound interface in SDN architecture. It is based on constraint programming techniques and is implemented in MiniZinc modelling language. Using constraint programming techniques in this Northbound interface has created an efficient tool for implementing complex Quality of Service routing applications in a few lines of code. The code includes only the problem statement and the solution is found by a general solver program. A routing framework is introduced based on SDN's architecture model which uses SCOR as its Northbound interface and an upper layer of applications implemented in SCOR. Performance of a few implemented routing applications are evaluated in different network topologies, network sizes and various number of concurrent flows.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, 11 algorithms, 3 table

Optical Network Virtualisation using Multi-technology Monitoring and SDN-enabled Optical Transceiver

We introduce the real-time multi-technology transport layer monitoring to facilitate the coordinated virtualisation of optical and Ethernet networks supported by optical virtualise-able transceivers (V-BVT). A monitoring and network resource configuration scheme is proposed to include the hardware monitoring in both Ethernet and Optical layers. The scheme depicts the data and control interactions among multiple network layers under the software defined network (SDN) background, as well as the application that analyses the monitored data obtained from the database. We also present a re-configuration algorithm to adaptively modify the composition of virtual optical networks based on two criteria. The proposed monitoring scheme is experimentally demonstrated with OpenFlow (OF) extensions for a holistic (re-)configuration across both layers in Ethernet switches and V-BVTs

Corporate payments networks and credit risk rating

Aggregate and systemic risk in complex systems are emergent phenomena depending on two properties: the idiosyncratic risks of the elements and the topology of the network of interactions among them. While a significant attention has been given to aggregate risk assessment and risk propagation once the above two properties are given, less is known about how the risk is distributed in the network and its relations with the topology. We study this problem by investigating a large proprietary dataset of payments among 2.4M Italian firms, whose credit risk rating is known. We document significant correlations between local topological properties of a node (firm) and its risk. Moreover we show the existence of an homophily of risk, i.e. the tendency of firms with similar risk profile to be statistically more connected among themselves. This effect is observed when considering both pairs of firms and communities or hierarchies identified in the network. We leverage this knowledge to show the predictability of the missing rating of a firm using only the network properties of the associated node

Access and metro network convergence for flexible end-to-end network design

This paper reports on the architectural, protocol, physical layer, and integrated testbed demonstrations carried out by the DISCUS FP7 consortium in the area of access - metro network convergence. Our architecture modeling results show the vast potential for cost and power savings that node consolidation can bring. The architecture, however, also recognizes the limits of long-reach transmission for low-latency 5G services and proposes ways to address such shortcomings in future projects. The testbed results, which have been conducted end-to-end, across access - metro and core, and have targeted all the layers of the network from the application down to the physical layer, show the practical feasibility of the concepts proposed in the project