Managing Broadband Access Network with a SDN-Based System

Abstract

Admittedly, the broadband access network has been improved largely with the developing technologies, it is still facing challenges on managing and maintaining existed resources efficiently. In order to build up an intelligent and open network architecture, and solve the problem of heterogeneous networks consisting of devices from different vendors, we have worked out a web-based managing system implementing the concept of Software-Defined Network (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization. The controlling plane is centered into the Controller layer and decoupled from the forwarding layer. The frame we proposed is also applicable for old routers, which do not support SDN, with an Agent on it to translate the OpenFlow messages. For a more intelligent routing schema, the controller is able to calculate with a fine-tuned ant colony optimization algorithm. At the top of the controller, the web-based managing system is accessible for operators, and they can manage the resource they possessed. With the above framework, we achieve the goal of an intelligent and open network architecture and verify it.