Title
On the feasibility and efficacy of control traffic protection in software-defined networks
Abstract
Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging networking paradigm that assumes a logically centralized control plane separated from the data plane. Despite all its advantages, separating the control and data planes introduces new challenges regarding resilient communications between the two. That is, disconnections between switches and their controllers could result in substantial packet loss and performance degradation. This paper addresses this challenge by studying the issue of control traffic protection in SDNs with arbitrary numbers of controllers. Specifically, we propose a control traffic protection scheme that combines both local rerouting and constrained reverse path forwarding protections, through which switches can locally react to failures and redirect the control traffic using standby backup forwarding options. Our goal is then to find a set of primary routes for control traffic, called protected control network, where as many switches as possible can benefit from the proposed protection scheme. We formulate the protected control network problem, prove its NP-hardness, and develop an algorithm that reconciles protectability and performance (e.g., switch-to-control latency). Through extensive simulations based on real topologies, we show that our approach significantly improves protectability of control traffic. The results should help further the process of deploying SDN in real-world networks.
Year
DOI
Venue
2015
10.1007/s11432-015-5483-7
Science China Information Sciences
Keywords
Field
DocType
software-defined network, protection, control traffic, resilience, optimization, 软件定义网络, 保护性, 控制流, 容错性, 优化, 120104
Forwarding plane,Latency (engineering),Packet loss,Computer network,Reverse path forwarding,Network topology,Software-defined networking,Network traffic control,Mathematics,Backup,Distributed computing
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
58
12
1869-1919
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.36
23
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Yannan Hu1705.09
Wendong Wang282172.69
Xiangyang Gong316123.01
Xirong Que414215.76
Shiduan Cheng581787.36