Design and implementation of SDN/IP hybrid space information network prototype

Abstract

Software Defined Networking (SDN) promises to ease design, operation and management of communication networks. For years, however, most networks have been designed, deployed and managed as IP-based systems. It is necessary to introduce SDN in IP backbones to construct SDN/IP hybrid space information network. In this paper, we design and implement a new architecture of the SDN/IP hybrid space information network. It helps to achieve a collaborative management between the IP network and the SDN network through the model. So, in space information network, we can use traditional IP-based system in ground internet and use centralized SDN in satellite network. By combining Quagga and SDN controller, the entire flexible centralized SDN network is abstracted as a traditional distributed control IP router. Thus, the SDN controller can get routing tables from Quagga and forward routing protocol packets over the network. At the same time, other IP subnet can be aware of the existing SDN subnet, and its location. We designed our SDN/IP hybrid network prototype combining the POX as the controller and the Mininet for topology construction, all with OpenFlow 1.0 support. And results show that we achieve the interconnection between SDN and IP subnets efficiently.