OpenFlow Network Research Articles

The Function of Achieving the SDN Based on the Ethernet and the Open Flow Network

Recently, the SDN is a popular research field. The centralized controller can control all network devices. In ad- dition, the priority if the packet transmitting route of the network or the supervision of the network safety can be conduct- ed from the comprehensive angle. The ECOE proposed in the paper is a kind of the network model of the SDN. It can support many important functions in the SDN by deploying the Ethernet switch in the core network and the OpenFlow switch at the network edge. This paper will introduce how ECOE network model can control the flow-based routing for different kinds of packets. In addition, it can flexibly limit the broadcast/multicast domain and dynamically set the flow load balance to the whole network. Finally, it can also explains how the structure of the ECOE supports the functions of the Service Chain in the Network Function Virtualization (NFV).

Dynamic Server Cluster Load Balancing in Virtualization Environment with OpenFlow

The load balancing technology is widely used in current enterprise network to provide high quality and reliable service. Conventional load balancing technology is often achieved by specific hardware that is usually very expensive and lacks sufficient flexibility. Meanwhile, it is easy to become a single point of failure and would be restricted in virtualization environments. Thus, we propose a load balancing algorithm based on server running state, which can calculate comprehensive loading according to the CPU utilization, memory utilization, and network traffic of the servers. Furthermore, a load balancing solution based on software defined networks (SDN) technology is applied in this paper, and it is designed and implemented in OpenFlow network. We combine network management and server state monitor in this scheme, in which the OpenFlow switches forward the request to the least comprehensive loading server by modifying the packet.

Flow distances on open flow networks

An open flow network is a weighted directed graph with a source and a sink, depicting flux distributions on networks in the steady state mode of an open flow system. Energetic food webs, economic input–output networks, and international trade networks are open flow network models of energy flows between species, money or value flows between industrial sectors, and goods flows between countries, respectively. An open flow network is different from a closed flow network because it considers the flows from or to the environment (the source and the sink). For instance, in energetic food webs, species obtain energy not only from other species but also from the environment (sunlight), and species also dissipate energy to the environment. Flow distances between any two nodes i and j are defined as the average number of transition steps of a random walker along the network from i to j. The conventional method for the calculation of the random walk distance on closed flow networks cannot be applied to open flow networks. Therefore, we derive novel explicit expressions for flow distances of open flow networks according to their underlying Markov matrix of the network in this paper. We apply flow distances to two types of empirical open flow networks, including energetic food webs and economic input–output networks. In energetic food webs, we visualize the trophic level of each species and compare flow distances with other distance metrics on the graph. In economic input–output networks, we rank sectors according to their average flow distances and cluster sectors into different industrial groups with strong connections. Other potential applications and mathematical properties are also discussed. To summarize, flow distance is a useful and powerful tool to study open flow systems.

Controlling Race Conditions in OpenFlow to Accelerate Application Verification and Packet Forwarding

OpenFlow is a Software Defined Networking (SDN) protocol that is being deployed in many network systems. SDN application verification takes an important role in guaranteeing the correctness of the application. Through our investigation, we discover that application verification can be very inefficient under the OpenFlow protocol since there are many race conditions between the data packets and control plane messages. Furthermore, these race conditions also increase the control plane workload and packet forwarding delay. We propose Attendre, an OpenFlow extension, to mitigate the ill effects of the race conditions in OpenFlow networks. We have implemented Attendre in NICE (a model checking verifier), Open vSwitch (a software virtual switch), and NOX (an OpenFlow controller). Experiments show that Attendre can reduce verification time by several orders of magnitude, and significantly reduce TCP connection setup time.

The Extended Dijkstra’s-based Load Balancing for OpenFlow Network

<span lang="EN-US">This paper proposes load-balancing algorithm on the basis of the Extended Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm for Software Defined Networking (SDN). The Extended Dijkstra’s algorithm considers not only the edge weights, but also the node weights to find the nearest server for a requesting client. The proposed algorithm also considers the link load in order to avoid congestion. We use Pyretic to implement the proposed algorithm and compare it with related ones under the Abilene network topology with the Mininet emulation tool. As shown by the comparisons, the proposed algorithm outperforms the others in term of the network end-to-end latency, throughput and response time at the expense of a little heavier computation load and more memory usage on the SDN controller.</span>

The Design and Research for Network Address Space Randomization in OpenFlow Network

By allocating IP address and changing IP address in source and destination hosts, network address space randomization is committed to construct a dynamic and heterogeneous network to decrease the attacking possibility and predictability. The research mainly deploys the features of OpenFlow network including data plane and control plane decoupling, centralized control of the network and dynamic updating of forwarding rules, combines the advantages of the network address space randomization technology with the features of the OpenFlow network, and designs a novel resolution towards IP conversion in Floodlight controller. The research can help improve the unpredictability and decrease the possibility of worm attacking and IP sniffing by IP allocation.

Verification of Flow Matching Functionality in the Forwarding Plane of OpenFlow Networks

In OpenFlow, data and control plane are decoupled from switches or routers. While the data plane resides in the switches or routers, the control plane might be moved into one or more external servers (controllers). In this article, we propose verification mechanisms for the data plane functionality of switches. The latter consists of two parts: (1) Flow-Match Header part (to match a flow of incoming packets) and (2) action part (e.g., to forward incoming packets to an outgoing port). We propose a mechanism to verify the Flow-Match Header part of the data plane. The mechanism can be executed at the controller, or on an additional device or server (or virtual machines) attached to the network. Deploying a virtual machine (VM) or server for verification may decrease the load of the controller and/or consumed bandwidth between the controller and a switch. We propose a heuristic to place external verification devices or VMs in a network such that the verification time can be minimized. Verification time with respect to consumed resources are evaluated through emulation experiments. Results confirm that the verification time using the proposed heuristic is indeed shortened significantly, while requiring low bandwidth resources.

A Flow-based Method to Measure Traffic Statistics in Software Defined Network

Since software defined network became a revolution of network, many new developments and deployments are put forward. Device operating in software defined network environment will need a controller to store control policy. As a result of flow is one of traffic presentation units in software defined network, hence, this paper proposed a prototype of flow-based method to measure traffic statistics which can be used in OpenFlow network. By analysis of flow table, active flows which managed by controller can be listed, and information of each flow can be presented with developed module on the controller. After gathered port statistics from OpenFlow switch and entries in flow table, information of each flow can be presented on a developed graphic interface. By using this method, Traffic statistics of each flow may be more adaptive and realizable for measurement for observation.

Aligning Technology and Market Drivers in an Open Source Standards Testing Program

In creating the Open Networking Foundation's conformance testing program for the OpenFlow networking specification, economic, technological, and market drivers must be harmonized, allowing for the simultaneous development of consumer confidence, industry competition, and trustworthy product validation.

OpenFlow Technology: A Journey of Simulation Tools

Abstract —This paper presents a complete guideline for developing OpenFlow infrastructure. OpenFlow is standard network protocol to manage traffic between routers and Ethernet Switches. This approach will help to create the next generation virtual network, which provides the solution for network management, flow control of packets, delay optimization etc without interfering the backbone network. Here a brief idea about all the supporting tools involved in the journey of OpenFlow has been introduced. This paper provides a solution with top to bottom approach to install OpenFlow network tools. On the basis of one by one approach user is able to solve the problem appeared during the installation with proper justifications. Index Terms —OpenFlow, Python, Mininet, NOX, Flowvisor. I. I NTRODUCTION Now a day the Network should fulfil the growing demand and handle the ever growing traffic as well. To come up with new technologies for networks [14][15], we need a testbed where we can implement the experiments or changes and can check the results. To create this testbed we use Software Defined Networking (SDN). It is an approach for network virtualization where the control plane is separated from the data plane and moved to an external software controller and OpenFlow [1][2][3] is the most used SDN solution. Open source is the best platform for designing and implementing a network. Here the open source software used is Ubuntu. First we need to create a network virtually using OpenFlow [4][5] and for this Mininet [8] is used. The source code for Mininet is written in python/C++. Controllers are used in OpenFlow network to manage the flow control. NOX [10][11] is most widely used controller since it is written in C++/python. Flowvisor [13] is a special purpose OpenFlow controller which acts as transparent proxy between control and data plane. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II describes the introduction to Ubuntu and its installation. Section III discusses the application of python in OpenFlow technology. In Section IV a detailed explanation of emulator ―Mininet‖ used in Wired OpenFlow network and its installation is outlined. Section V & VI describe the brief introduction to NOX Controller and Flowvisor, and its installation is outlined. It also gives the solution of problem appeared during installation with proper justifications. Finally Section VII concludes the whole paper. Flow Chart of complete paper: OpenFlow based network Study of Flowvisor and installation of its supporting jdk6 and then installation of II. U

Dynamic Security Traversal in OpenFlow Networks with QoS Guarantee

To provide the essential network protection, data flows are forced to pass through the desired sequences of security devices (middleboxes) in a datacenter, which is called security traversal. In this paper, we identify the problem of quality of service (QoS) guarantee in security traversal and propose a scheme to dynamically change the security traversal path. The dynamic security traversal scheme is achieved by the proposed optimal security traversal with middlebox addition (OSTMA) mechanism which poses and solves the considered QoS-guaranteed problem as a constrained shortest path problem (CSP). Besides, we design a system framework with a centralized security traversal controller adopting the proposed OSTMA mechanism, which leverage the capability of OpenFlow networks to dynamically monitor the network condition information and reconfigure the security traversal path. Finally, our experiment shows results show that the proposed dynamic security traversal scheme can achieve QoS requirements while still reserving the scalability and flexibility of distributed security middleboxes.

Research on Applying SDN Technology to Electric Power Data Center

In order to meet the developing demand of the new generation of data center, and to better satisfy the need of the smart grid, we introduce the OpenFlow-based SDN technology to electric power data center. Because there are many switches in electric power data center, it requires the use of a distributed multi-controller to manage, however there is currently no mechanism for these controllers to cooperate with the each other. Based on these questions this paper presents a collaborative model for multi-domains OpenFlow networks, which allows different network domains to collaborate with each other in an efficient way.

QoS mechanism for virtualized wireless networks with software‐defined networking

SummaryAn effective Quality‐of‐Service (QoS) mechanism is essential for high‐quality Internet services. One QoS solution, rate limiting, is now a common strategy for obtaining a desired QoS from end‐to‐end traffic flow. Because of the high sensitivity of the QoS metric, implementing rate‐limiting QoS in hardware obtains better accuracy compared with evaluation by simulation models. For virtualized wired‐wireless networks, this study proposes a software‐defined networking based QoS mechanism based on OpenFlow‐enabled Net Field Programmable Gate Array platform. The OpenFlow wildcard table module in the user data path is modified to budget each packet with a certain buffer speed when the packets pass the output queues. The modified OpenFlow network isolates traffic flow and limits the traffic rate according to the budgeted bandwidth. The experimental results show that the mechanism achieves 4.6% improvement in packet loss and 47% improvement in delay. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Network Innovation using OpenFlow: A Survey

OpenFlow is currently the most commonly deployed Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology. SDN consists of decoupling the control and data planes of a network. A software-based controller is responsible for managing the forwarding information of one or more switches; the hardware only handles the forwarding of traffic according to the rules set by the controller. OpenFlow is an SDN technology proposed to standardize the way that a controller communicates with network devices in an SDN architecture. It was proposed to enable researchers to test new ideas in a production environment. OpenFlow provides a specification to migrate the control logic from a switch into the controller. It also defines a protocol for the communication between the controller and the switches. As discussed in this survey paper, OpenFlow-based architectures have specific capabilities that can be exploited by researchers to experiment with new ideas and test novel applications. These capabilities include software-based traffic analysis, centralized control, dynamic updating of forwarding rules and flow abstraction. OpenFlow-based applications have been proposed to ease the configuration of a network, to simplify network management and to add security features, to virtualize networks and data centers and to deploy mobile systems. These applications run on top of networking operating systems such as Nox, Beacon, Maestro, Floodlight, Trema or Node.Flow. Larger scale OpenFlow infrastructures have been deployed to allow the research community to run experiments and test their applications in more realistic scenarios. Also, studies have measured the performance of OpenFlow networks through modelling and experimentation. We describe the challenges facing the large scale deployment of OpenFlow-based networks and we discuss future research directions of this technology.

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Research on OpenFlow-Based SDN Technologies

软件定义网络(software-defined networking,简称SDN)技术分离了网络的控制平面和数据平面,为研发网络新应用和未来互联网技术提供了一种新的解决方案.综述了基于OpenFlow 的SDN 技术发展现状,首先总结了逻辑控制和数据转发分离架构的研究背景,并介绍了其关键组件和研究进展,包括OpenFlow交换机、控制器和SDN技术,然后从4 个方面分析了基于OpenFlow 的SDN 技术目前所面临的问题和解决思路.结合近年来的发展现状,归纳了在校园网、数据中心以及面向网络管理和网络安全方面的应用,最后探讨了未来的研究趋势.;The control and data planes are decoupled in software-defined networking, which provide a new solution for research on new network applications and future Internet technologies. The development status of OpenFlow-based SDN technologies is surveyed in this paper. The research background of decoupled architecture of network control and data transmission in OpenFlow network is summarized first, and the key components and research progress including OpenFlow switch, controller, and SDN technologies are introduced. Moreover, current problems and solutions of OpenFlow-based SDN technologies are analyzed in four aspects. Combined with the development status in recent years, the applications used in campus, data center, network management and network security are summarized. Finally, future research trends are discussed.

The Implementation of Energy-Efficient and QoS Balancing Routing Based on OpenFlow Networks

In this paper an energy-efficient management routing algorithm is presented. We provide a new idea and some solutions to balance the energy-efficient and QoS. Within the scope of QoS requirements, the routers consider energy-efficient and QoS at the same time, and choose a minimum energy consumption path. The proposed routing algorithm is then implemented with OpenFlow, which is an expandable, customizable, controllable and programmable experimental platform. The result indicates that proposed algorithm works well, and can balances between energy-efficient and QoS.

EstiNet openflow network simulator and emulator

In this article, we introduce the EstiNet OpenFlow network simulator and emulator, and present its support for testing the functions and evaluating the performances of software-defined networks? OpenFlow controller?s application programs. EstiNet uses an unique kernel reentering simulation methodology to enable unmodified real applications to run on nodes in its simulated network. As a result, without any modification, real NOX/POX or Floodlight OpenFlow controllers can readily run on a host in an EstiNet simulated network to control thousands of simulated OpenFlow switches. EstiNet has the characteristics of a simulator and an emulator at the same time. It combines the advantages of the simulation and emulation approaches without their respective shortcomings. EstiNet uses real OpenFlow controller programs, real network application programs, and the real TCP/IP protocol stack in the Linux kernel to generate correct, accurate, and repeatable SDN application performance results. In this article, we compare EstiNet with ns-3 and Mininet regarding their capabilities, performance, and scalability.

Automatic configuration of routing control platforms in OpenFlow networks

RouteFlow provides a way to run routing control platforms (e.g. Quagga) in OpenFlow networks. One of the issues of RouteFlow is that an administrator needs to devote a lot of time (typically 7 hours for 28 switches) in manual configurations. We propose and demonstrate a framework that can automatically configure RouteFlow. For this demonstration, we use an emulated pan-European topology of 28 switches. In the demonstration, we stream a video clip from a server to a remote client, and show that the video clip reaches at the remote client within 4 minutes (including the configuration time). In addition, we show automatic configuration of RouteFlow using a GUI (Graphical User Interface).

Using DAIM as a reactive interpreter for openflow networks to enable autonomic functionality

OpenFlow is the first standardization of Software Defined Networks. OpenFlow approach, however, has number of limitations: it restricts its use within a single-domain, it is not scalable, and it does not adapt well to changes in local environments. We evaluate the number of approaches to solve these limitations, and propose DAIM model (Distributed Active information Model) which can be integrated into the OpenFlow structure at the level of the switches to provide a reactive interpreter that will manage the flow tables autonomically.