A Data Plane Multi-Path Load Balancing Mechanism for Hybrid Software Defined Networks in Different Topologies

Abstract

Software Defined Networking (SDN) has a potential to address a number of networking challenges, but still presents other financial and business challenges such as budget constraints, acceptability and trust amongst network operators. A hybrid SDN deployment is a conceivable solution, because it offers the benefits of SDN and traditional network capabilities, including budget constraints adaptability, falling back on time-tested traditional tools, central network programmability and will offer an organization a smooth transition to SDN. As modern-day communication has become an imperative feature of day to day business functions, there is a need to balance the network load to achieve improved network performance, minimizing delay and reduce the time taken for network response. In this paper, we develop and study multi-path load balancing in a hybrid SDN data plane. The load balancer’s performance is tested using four different hybrid SDN topologies, namely, Fat Tree, Ring, Mesh and Torus topology with the OpenDayLight controller. The main contribution of this work is a data plane congestion and link overloading load balancing testing and analysis for deployment (before or after network failure) in hybrid SDN environments. The obtained results display an improved overall network performance and reduced network delay.