Automation of Modular and Programmable Control and Data Plane SDN Networks

Abstract

In the last years, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has provided a new approach to network programmability, first regarding the control plane and later the data plane. With the popularity of the data plane programming languages like P4, SDN network automation has extended from developing control plane applications and deploying controllers to integrating custom packet processing pipelines in this process. However, developing control and data plane applications can become burdensome since expertise in both fields is scarce. The process of automating SDN networks requires (among many tasks) inter-plane correlated application self-collection and assembly. As a result, the orchestrator presented in this paper, named P4click, provides high-level interfaces in order to transparently deploy modular control and data plane applications for SDN networks. This paper describes the architecture design of the orchestrator, outlines the deployment structure, and provides a general view of control plane application deployment and data plane pipeline assembly. Besides, P4click requires no previous knowledge of data plane programming and provides a simple interface for network operators that have to deploy new network functionalities. The results in this paper show which tasks in the network automation are most influential (timewise) in bringing a network up and running from the ground up.