Analysis and Optimization of Hybrid Software-Defined Networks

Abstract

Hybrid IP networks that use both control plane paradigms - distributed and centralized - promise the best of two worlds: programmability and flexible control of Software-Defined Networking (SDN), and at the same time the reliability and fault tolerance of distributed routing protocols like Open Shortest Path First (OSPF). Hybrid SDN/OSPF networks typically deploy OSPF to assure care-free operation of best effort traffic, while SDN can control prioritized traffic. This ships-passing-in-the-night approach, where both control planes are unaware of each other's configurations, only require hybrid SDN/OSPF routers that can participate in the domain-wide legacy routing protocol and additionally connect to a central SDN controller. This mode of operation is however known for a number of challenges in operational networks, including those related to network failures, size of forwarding tables, routing convergence time, and the increased complexity of network management. There are alternative modes of hybrid operation that provide a more holistic network control paradigm, either through an OSPF-enabled SDN controller, or a common network management system that allows the joint monitoring and configuration of both control planes, or via the partitioning of the legacy routing domain with SDN border nodes. The latter mode of operation offers to some extent to steer the working of the legacy routing protocol inside the sub-domains, which is new. The analysis, modeling, and evaluative comparison of this approach called SDN Partitioning with other modes of operation is the main contribution of this thesis. This thesis addresses important network planning tasks in hybrid SDN/OSPF networks and provides the according mathematical models to optimize network clustering, capacity planning, SDN node placement, and resource provisioning for a fault tolerant operation. It furthermore provides the mathematical models to optimize traffic engineering, failure recovery, reconfiguration scheduling, and traffic monitoring in hybrid SDN/OSPF networks, which are vital network operational tasks.