A Blockchain-Based Consensus Slicing Mechanism for Distributed SDN Control Plane

Abstract

In large-scale distributed Software Defined Networks (SDNs), a logically centralized network view is required in the physically distributed control plane to provide correct application decisions. Distributed SDN controllers communicate through east-west interfaces to achieve consistency of the global network view and coordination of control decisions. The consistency of the global network view requires synchronization of various network states in multiple controllers in SDN. Different network states differ in update rate, data size, application access method, etc. These factors affect the consensus protocol and synchronization strategy used for state synchronization. Therefore, we propose a consensus slicing mechanism that dynamically adjusts the synchronization strategy according to application requirements, minimizing consistency differences among controllers and reducing synchronization overhead. Then, we use a storage approach combining blockchain with distributed databases to store synchronized state information, improving the efficiency and anti-tamper ability of state information. Simulation experiments validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.