Software Defined Networking Management Research Articles

FastRule: Efficient Flow Entry Updates for TCAM-Based OpenFlow Switches

With an increasing demand for flexible management in software-defined networks (SDNs), it becomes critical to minimize the network policy update time. Although major SDN controllers are now optimized for rapid network update at the control plane, there is still room for data plane optimization in terms of update time, when using TCAM-based physical SDN commodity-off-the-shelf switches. A slow update directly affects network performance and creates bottlenecks. To minimize the flow entry update time, a dependency graph, a kind of directed acyclic graph (DAG), can be used for the access management of flow entries at the switch. Thanks to the DAG, unnecessary entry movements, which are the main factor slowing down flow entry updates, can be avoided. However, existing algorithms show limitations when updates become very frequent. We propose a new flow entry update algorithm, called FastRule, that exploits a greedy strategy with an efficient data structure to accelerate flow entry update with a DAG approach. Moreover, we also adjust our algorithm for other flow table layouts to make it scalable. We elaborate on the correctness of FastRule and test our algorithm using a hardware switch. Compared with existing algorithms, the evaluation shows that our algorithm is about 100x faster than state-of-the-art solutions with a flow table of 1k size.

Software Defined Network-Based Edge Cloud Resource Allocation Framework

A growing number of user applications rely on the computing resources of edge cloud data centers (ECDCs). The efficient management of ECDC resources has a positive impact on the cloud service providers' profitability and on the stringent quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of user applications. This paper proposes a resource allocation framework of interconnected ECDCs using software-defined networking (SDN). SDN technology is used to ensure QoS and to efficiently embed user applications into the ECDCs. The proposed framework, called infrastructure as a service provisioning using SDN (IaaSP-SDN), includes the two-phase coordinated IaaS requests. Provisioning approach and a set of SDN management modules to set up accepted IaaS. The performance of IaaSP-SDN is evaluated in two steps: 1) a prototype is compared with generalized multi-protocol label switching (GMPLS) and 2) the impact of SDN controller physical location on the performance of the IaaSP-SDN framework is evaluated. The results illustrate that the SDN framework is more stable and scalable than GMPLS. We also show that SDN controller location attributes have a significant effect on the acceptance ratio of IaaS requests.

A Hierarchical SDN Architecture for Ultra-Dense Millimeter-Wave Cellular Networks

To cope with the tremendous growth in mobile data traffic, ultra-dense networks (UDNs) will be deployed in the future cellular network. Meanwhile, the enormous amount of available spectrum in millimeter-wave (mmWave) bands can be also exploited to increase the wireless link capacity. In accordance with these trends, this article introduces a novel hierarchical software-defined networking (SDN) architecture to facilitate the deployment of UDNs with both microwave base stations and mmWave access points. Aimed at reducing the cost of computational complexity and signaling overhead, the novel SDN architecture employs a semi-distributed design approach by configuring two levels of controllers: the centralized superior SDN controller and the localized subordinate SDN controller. Some practical challenges posed by the characteristics of mmWave transmissions, such as high propagation loss, channel blockage, and directional beamforming, are also discussed. To deal with such challenges, we then propose several important network operations for the hierarchical SDN, including dynamic subordinate SDN management, mobility management, and user-centric design. We finally provide simulation results to demonstrate the performance advantages of our proposals.

Are We Ready to Drive Software-Defined Networks? A Comprehensive Survey on Management Tools and Techniques

In the context of the emergent Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm, the attention is mostly directed to the evolution of control protocols and networking functionalities. However, network professionals also need the right tools to reach the same level—and beyond—of monitoring and control they have in traditional networks. Current SDN tools are developed on an ad hoc basis, for specific SDN frameworks, while production environments demand standard platforms and easy integration. This survey aims to foster the definition of the next generation SDN management framework by providing the readers a thorough overview of existing SDN tools and main research directions.

Achieving efficiency in autonomic network management of IP networks based on SDN management logic

The layer-three redundancy in large companies' IP networks remains a major concern, aiming to increase, as much as possible, the availability ratio for the offered services to the customers. However, deploying the existing protocols requires in addition to providing backup links and physical equipment, the manual configuration which is time-consuming and error-prone. Autonomic router redundancy controller (ARRC) was the first autonomic solution whose objective was to deploy redundancy on existing networks. Yet, this solution was unable to handle redundancy in all network scenarios. In this paper, we propose a new approach extended ARRC (E-ARRC), inspired from software defined networking (SDN) management logic to address ARRC shortcomings and limitations. SDN represents a new vision for the future networks, aiming to reduce complexity and to ensure an efficient control of the network behaviour. Based on a global view of the network, SDN achieves business needs via a high-level specification of rules which are applied accordingly on the SDN capable nodes. The results of our approach, which is based on shared-networks reachability, illustrate a more granular level of redundancy, with a reliable exploitation of all the available resources.

Novel Approach Based on Genetic Algorithm for Adaptive Resource Management in Software-Defined Networks

Novel Approach Based on Genetic Algorithm for Adaptive Resource Management in Software-Defined Networks

A user-centric SDN management architecture for NFV-based residential networks

The residential gateway is a key device in the provision of Internet access to a household or to a small office. Managing a residential network nowadays means configuring the functionality provided by the residential gateway, which is often a task that requires a certain level of technical expertise that most residential users lack. Internet Service Providers sometimes address this usability problem by managing the residential gateway from a central location and offering a way of configuring simple functions such as the password of the Wi-Fi network through a web-based application. In this paper a new user-centric management architecture is proposed, to increase the active engagement of residential users in the management tasks of their own networks, improving the usability of the network and facilitating the provision of new services. In this approach, residential network management applications are split in two components: a front-end handling user interaction and running on the user's preferred device (PC, laptop, smartphone); and a back-end built on top of both the Software Defined Networking (SDN) and the Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) paradigms. The solution takes advantage of the fine-grained control of network traffic and the convenience to communicate network events provided by SDN and the outsourcing of traditional network functions like routing or NAT from the residential gateway to a cloud-based infrastructure managed by the Internet Service Provider. In this paper the advantages and challenges of this approach are discussed, based on the results obtained from a proof of concept system that has been developed to evaluate the feasibility and performance of the proposal.

A Low-Cost Measurement Framework in Software Defined Networks

Software Defined Network (SDN) makes network management more flexible by separating control plane and data plane, centralized control and being programmable. Although, network measurement still remains in primary stage in SDN, it has become an essential research field in SDN management. In this context, this paper presents a low-cost high-accuracy measurement framework to support various network measurement tasks, such as throughput, delay and packet loss rate. In this framework, we only measure per-flow edge switches (the first and the last switches). In addition, a new adaptive sampling algorithm is proposed to significantly improve measurement accuracy and decrease network overhead. Meanwhile, we consider a low-cost topology discovery approach into our framework instead of topology discovery currently implemented by SDN controller frameworks. In order to improve the accuracy of delay, we also join a time threshold value to adjust the time delay. Furthermore, we consider and analyze the balance between measurement overhead and accuracy in several aspects. Last, we utilize POX controller to implement the proposed measurement framework. The effectiveness of our solution is demonstrated through simulations in Mininet and Matlab.

A Survey on Fault Management in Software-Defined Networks

Software-defined networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm that has become increasingly popular in recent years. The core idea is to separate the control and data planes, allowing the construction of network applications using high-level abstractions that are translated to network devices through a southbound interface. SDN architecture is composed of three layers: 1) infrastructure layer, responsible exclusively for data forwarding; 2) control layer, which maintains the network view and provides core network abstractions; and 3) application layer, which uses abstractions provided by the control layer to implement network applications. SDN provides features, such as flexibility and programmability, that are key enablers to meet current network requirements (e.g., multi-tenant cloud networks and elastic optical networks). However, along with its benefits, SDN also brings new issues. In this survey we focus on issues related to fault management. Different fault management threat vectors are introduced by each layer, as well as by the interface between layers. Nevertheless, besides addressing fault management issues of its architecture, SDN also must handle the same problems faced by legacy networks. However, programmability and centralized management might be used to provide flexibility to deal with those issues. This paper presents an overview of fault management in SDN. The major contributions of this paper are as follows: 1) identification of the main fault management issues in SDN and classification according to the affected layers; 2) survey of efforts that address those issues and classification according to the affected planes, issues concerned, general approaches, and features; and 3) discussion about trade-offs of different approaches and their suitability for different scenarios.

Energy Savings Consumption on Public Wireless Networks by SDN Management

In order to use the energy more efficiently, network algorithms and protocols must incorporate in their decision mechanisms some functions focused on saving energy. In this paper we have studied different features and parameters of wireless networks to establish their relationship with the power consumption. First, we have analyzed the variation of power consumption of access points (APs) in function of the antenna transmission power. Second, we have collected user information from real public wireless network to determine the real requirements of network resources in real time basis. Based on this information, a new extension for Openflow protocol over Software-Defined Networking (SDN) networks will be proposed to manage the wireless network, with the aim to keep the optimal network performance with minimal power consumption. This extension introduces new Openflow messages and a new function to be incorporated in SDN controllers and Openflow enabled devices. The proposal will be validated by appropriated simulations based on real scenarios: a shopping center and a municipal wireless network.

A framework for SDN integrated management based on a CIM model and a vertical management plane

The Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm establishes a typical three-plane architecture (i.e., Data, Control, and Application planes) that facilitates the deployment of network functions and simplifies traditional network management tasks. However, SDN lacks an integrated or standardized framework for managing its architecture. Some investigations have addressed such shortage by proposing different solutions that tackle specific management requirements for particular SDN technology instances. This isolated approach forces network administrators to use multiple frameworks to achieve a complete SDN management that is complex and time-consuming in heterogeneous environments. In this paper, we introduce an information model based on the common information model that establishes a technology-agnostic and consistent characterization of the SDN architecture. Such information model represents the core towards building a Management Plane aimed to facilitate the integrated SDN management in heterogeneous environments. To test our information model, we developed a prototype and conducted a performance evaluation in an SDN configuration scenario that deploys different managing technologies. The obtained results provide directions that corroborate the feasibility of our approach (in terms of time-response and network traffic) for configuring heterogeneous SDNs.

Learning Concept Hierarchy from YANG for Management of Software-Defined Networking based on Theory of Concept Lattices

Learning Concept Hierarchy from YANG for Management of Software-Defined Networking based on Theory of Concept Lattices

Dynamic anchor points selection for mobility management in Software Defined Networks

Today consumers want to stay connected to networking services anywhere and at anytime. Managing consumers׳ mobility to ensure session and service continuity in efficient and effective manner is more and more challenging due to the increasing number of mobile devices and their high mobility pattern. Different solutions have been proposed in the literature to tackle this problem. They are based on a single mobility management point, called mobility anchor. Unfortunately, most of these solutions suffer from long packets delivery delay and high overhead ratio. In this work, we propose a new mobility management called Software Defined Mobility Management (SDMM) based on the Software Defined Network (SDN) paradigm. The proposed solution is network based, where the mobility is managed by network entities. In opposite to existing approaches, the anchor point is dynamically selected for each flow by a virtual function implemented at the top of the SDN controller which has a global view of the network. The main advantages of our approach are threefold: first reducing packet delivery delay, second reducing the handover latency and third minimizing the tunneling overhead.

Software-Defined Networks as a Stage of the Network Technology Evolution

The authors of the article focus on the concept of a software defined network. In the beginning, the brief historical account is given concerning software defined networks as a scientific concept, its formation and technological and scientific meaning. The software defined network concept is treated in the article not as the final state-of-the-art in networking, but rather as a possible step and direction in the development of a networking paradigm. The article touches on pros and cons as well of the software defined networking and gives an account of possible stages of development of this technology in the context of other technologies, considering its hybrid with MPLS, as an example. OpenFlow protocol constitutes the main part of the article. The authors further discuss various kinds of existing libraries realizing programmable management routines for a software defined network using OpenFlow. All of these libraries provide API for building modular applications for software defined network management. Touching on practical side of implementation the results of comparative tests of throughput and latency, achieved with these libraries are shown.

JONS: Special Issue on Management of Software-Defined Networks

Software Defined Networking attempts to use software defined packages or modules for implementing network features/functions and their control and management. It utilizes the concept of separating the network control plane from the network traffic forwarding plane. The control plane can be physically distributed, but it is logically centralized. SDN decouples the physical networking infrastructure/resources from the services that utilize them so that flexibility and programmability in a resources’ assignment can be achieved seamlessly for the desired applications and services. However, there are a number of network management issues to be explored as to how developers and engineers should design, build, and manage networks from the existing networks, and what and how new functionalities can be offered. We received a large number of submissions from seven different countries. We have gone through a rigorous review process and all the papers received at least two reviews. Ultimately, we selected five papers from the open call, and an invited paper from the industry. This special issue covers a wide scope of SDN management including a transport network, a broader abstraction platform, a hybrid architecture with a legacy network, a multi-domain architecture, multicast, and end-host management. Some of them are near or already at the operational/deployment stage.

IRIS-CoMan: Scalable and Reliable Control and Management Architecture for SDN-Enabled Large-Scale Networks

A software-defined network (SDN) enables agile network control and configuration as well as shortens the network function deployment time. Despite the projected benefits of an SDN, the abstractions toward the remote and centralized control tend to impose excessive control traffic overhead in order for the controller to acquire global network visibility as well as extend the legacy network's inaccurate and unreliable management problems into the control plane. In addition, many recent SDNs facilitate multiple management pillars (such as customized interfaces and protocols) so that user applications can directly communicate to the data plane to measure and monitor specific information. Not only logical control centralization, but also virtualization of the underlying computing and network resources add demands of more flexible and programmable monitoring functions per the virtual domain. A complex combination of multiple and heterogeneous management channels introduces the significant scalability, control tuning, and reliability problems in SDN. In this paper, to address the above control and management problems, we propose a highly scalable and reliable SDN control and management architecture, called IRIS Control and Management (IRIS-CoMan). It builds an intelligent agent based hybrid SDN architecture by providing a control and management abstraction and filtering layer. It serves an essential component for the reliable, scalable, and secure SDN deployment. We present design, implementation, deployment, and feasibility evaluation results of IRIS-CoMan.

HONE: Joint Host-Network Traffic Management in Software-Defined Networks

Applications running in modern datacenters interact with the underlying network in complex ways, making administrators run multiple traffic management tasks to tune the system. However, today's traffic management solutions are limited by an artificial division between the hosts and the network. While network devices only have knowledge of the network layer, the hosts can provide more visibility into how applications interact with the network. This paper proposes to extend the scope of traffic management to the end-host network stack. We present a software-defined networking platform for joint HOst-NEtwork (HONE) traffic management. HONE presents a uniform view of a diverse collection of measurement data, minimizes measurement overhead by performing lazy materialization of fine-grained statistics, and scales the analysis by processing data locally on the end hosts. HONE offers a simple and expressive programming framework for network and service administrators. We evaluate HONE by implementing several canonical traffic management applications, measuring its efficiency with micro-benchmarks, and demonstrating its scalability with larger experiments on Amazon EC2.

Software-Defined Optical Networks Technology and Infrastructure: Enabling Software-Defined Optical Network Operations [Invited

Software-defined networking (SDN) enables programmable SDN control and management functions at a number of layers, allowing applications to control network resources or information across different technology domains, e.g., Ethernet, wireless, and optical. Current cloud-based services are pushing networks to new boundaries by deploying cutting edge optical technologies to provide scalable and flexible services. SDN combined with the latest optical transport technologies, such as elastic optical networks, enables network operators and cloud service providers to customize their infrastructure dynamically to user/application requirements and therefore minimize the extra capital and operational costs required for hosting new services. In this paper a unified control plane architecture based on OpenFlow for optical SDN tailored to cloud services is introduced. Requirements for its implementation are discussed considering emerging optical transport technologies. Implementations of the architecture are proposed and demonstrated across heterogeneous state-of-the-art optical, packet, and IT resource integrated cloud infrastructure. Finally, its performance is evaluated using cloud use cases and its results are discussed.

Federated software defined network operations for LHC experiments

The most well-known high-energy physics collaboration, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is based on e-Science, has been facing several challenges presented by its extraordinary instruments in terms of the generation, distribution, and analysis of large amounts of scientific data. Currently, data distribution issues are being resolved by adopting an advanced Internet technology called software defined networking (SDN). Stability of the SDN operations and management is demanded to keep the federated LHC data distribution networks reliable. Therefore, in this paper, an SDN operation architecture based on the distributed virtual network operations center (DvNOC) is proposed to enable LHC researchers to assume full control of their own global end-to-end data dissemination. This may achieve an enhanced data delivery performance based on data traffic offloading with delay variation. The evaluation results indicate that the overall end-to-end data delivery performance can be improved over multi-domain SDN environments based on the proposed federated SDN/DvNOC operation framework.