State of the Art and Recent Research Advances in Software Defined Networking

Emerging network services and subsequent growth in the networking infrastructure have gained tremendous momentum in recent years. Application performance requiring rapid real-time network provisioning, optimized traffic management, and virtualization of shared resources has induced the conceptualization and adoption of new networking models. Software defined networking (SDN), one of the predominant and relatively new networking paradigms, seeks to simplify network management by decoupling network control logic from the underlying hardware and introduces real-time network programmability enabling innovation. The present work reviews the state of the art in software defined networking providing a historical perspective on complementary technologies in network programmability and the inherent shortcomings which paved the way for SDN. The SDN architecture is discussed along with popular protocols, platforms, and existing simulation and debugging solutions. Furthermore, a detailed analysis is presented around recent SDN development and deployment avenues ranging from mobile communications and data centers to campus networks and residential environments. The review concludes by highlighting implementation challenges and subsequent research directions being pursued in academia and industry to address issues related to application performance, control plane scalability and design, security, and interdomain connectivity in the context of SDN.

[1]  Ying Zhang,et al.  On Resilience of Split-Architecture Networks , 2011, 2011 IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference - GLOBECOM 2011.

[2]  Limin Xiao,et al.  OFBGP: A Scalable, Highly Available BGP Architecture for SDN , 2014, 2014 IEEE 11th International Conference on Mobile Ad Hoc and Sensor Systems.

[3]  Jun Bi,et al.  BTSDN: BGP-based transition for the existing networks to SDN , 2014 .

[4]  Hwee Pink Tan,et al.  Sensor OpenFlow: Enabling Software-Defined Wireless Sensor Networks , 2012, IEEE Communications Letters.

[5]  Vijay Mann,et al.  Living on the edge: Monitoring network flows at the edge in cloud data centers , 2013, 2013 Fifth International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS).

[6]  Yashar Ganjali,et al.  HyperFlow: A Distributed Control Plane for OpenFlow , 2010, INM/WREN.

[7]  César A. C. Teixeira,et al.  CastFlow: Clean-slate multicast approach using in-advance path processing in programmable networks , 2012, 2012 IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC).

[8]  Marcos Rogério Salvador,et al.  Virtual routers as a service: the RouteFlow approach leveraging software-defined networks , 2011, CFI.

[9]  John Ronayne.  Introduction to digital communications switching , 1986 .

[10]  Ashraf Matrawy,et al.  Smart wireless sensor network management based on software-defined networking , 2014, 2014 27th Biennial Symposium on Communications (QBSC).

[11]  Nick Feamster,et al.  The road to SDN: an intellectual history of programmable networks , 2014, CCRV.

[12]  Nalini Venkatasubramanian,et al.  A Software Defined Networking architecture for the Internet-of-Things , 2014, 2014 IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS).

[13]  Ian F. Akyildiz,et al.  A roadmap for traffic engineering in SDN-OpenFlow networks , 2014, Comput. Networks.

[14]  Jennifer Rexford,et al.  Toward Software-Defined Cellular Networks , 2012, 2012 European Workshop on Software Defined Networking.

[15]  Jing Wang,et al.  NO stack: A SDN-based framework for future cellular networks , 2014, 2014 International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC).

[16]  Marc St-Hilaire,et al.  Optimal Model for the Controller Placement Problem in Software Defined Networks , 2015, IEEE Communications Letters.

[17]  Minzhe Guo,et al.  Controller Placement for Improving Resilience of Software-Defined Networks , 2013, 2013 Fourth International Conference on Networking and Distributed Computing.

[18]  Martín Casado,et al.  Onix: A Distributed Control Platform for Large-scale Production Networks , 2010, OSDI.

[19]  Syed Ali Khayam,et al.  Revisiting Traffic Anomaly Detection Using Software Defined Networking , 2011, RAID.

[20]  Eric A. Brewer,et al.  Enhancing rural connectivity with software defined networks , 2013, ACM DEV '13.

[21]  Fernando M. V. Ramos,et al.  Towards secure and dependable software-defined networks , 2013, HotSDN '13.

[22]  Xenofontas A. Dimitropoulos,et al.  Evaluating the effect of centralization on routing convergence on a hybrid BGP-SDN emulation framework , 2014, SIGCOMM.

[23]  Fernando A. Kuipers,et al.  Scalability and Resilience of Software-Defined Networking: An Overview , 2014, ArXiv.

[24]  Wen Zhang,et al.  Controller placement and flow based dynamic management problem towards SDN , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Communication Workshop (ICCW).

[25]  Ting Wang,et al.  QoS-aware optical burst switching in OpenFlow based Software-Defined Optical Networks , 2013, 2013 17th International Conference on Optical Networking Design and Modeling (ONDM).

[26]  Leandros Tassiulas,et al.  Pursuing a Software Defined Information-centric Network , 2012, 2012 European Workshop on Software Defined Networking.

[27]  Software-defined networking : the service provider perspective , 2013 .

[28]  Sriram Natarajan,et al.  A Software defined Cloud-Gateway automation system using OpenFlow , 2013, 2013 IEEE 2nd International Conference on Cloud Networking (CloudNet).

[29]  Minlan Yu,et al.  Scalable flow-based networking with DIFANE , 2010, SIGCOMM 2010.

[30]  Qi Shi,et al.  SDN-based channel assignment algorithm for interference management in dense Wi-Fi networks , 2016, 2016 European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC).

[31]  Xirong Que,et al.  Reliability-aware controller placement for Software-Defined Networks , 2013, 2013 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM 2013).

[32]  Nick Feamster.  Outsourcing home network security , 2010, HomeNets '10.

[33]  Nick McKeown,et al.  Where is the debugger for my software-defined network? , 2012, HotSDN '12.

[34]  Anja Feldmann,et al.  Logically centralized?: state distribution trade-offs in software defined networks , 2012, HotSDN '12.

[35]  Fabrizio Granelli,et al.  EmPOWER: A Testbed for Network Function Virtualization Research and Experimentation , 2013, 2013 IEEE SDN for Future Networks and Services (SDN4FNS).

[36]  Mathieu Bouet,et al.  DISCO: Distributed SDN controllers in a multi-domain environment , 2014, 2014 IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS).

[37]  Yonggang Wen,et al.  “ A Survey of Software Defined Networking , 2020 .

[38]  Song Guo,et al.  Software-defined wireless mesh networks: architecture and traffic orchestration , 2015, IEEE Network.

[39]  Lixin Gao,et al.  How to lease the internet in your spare time , 2007, CCRV.

[40]  Julio Ortega Lopera,et al.  Accelerating OpenFlow switching with network processors , 2009, ANCS '09.

[41]  Guofei Gu,et al.  Attacking software-defined networks: a first feasibility study , 2013, HotSDN '13.

[42]  Alaitz Mendiola,et al.  GEANT SDX - SDN based Open eXchange Point , 2016, 2016 IEEE NetSoft Conference and Workshops (NetSoft).

[43]  Hong Yan,et al.  A clean slate 4D approach to network control and management , 2005, CCRV.

[44]  Laura Galluccio,et al.  SDN-WISE: Design, prototyping and experimentation of a stateful SDN solution for WIreless SEnsor networks , 2015, 2015 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM).

[45]  Ting Zhang,et al.  Controller Architecture and Performance in Software-Defined Networks , 2014 .

[46]  Alan L. Cox,et al.  Maestro: A System for Scalable OpenFlow Control , 2010 .

[47]  Brighten Godfrey,et al.  VeriFlow: verifying network-wide invariants in real time , 2012, HotSDN '12.

[48]  Martín Casado,et al.  Practical declarative network management , 2009, WREN '09.

[49]  Tinku Mohamed Rasheed,et al.  Cellular software defined networking: a framework , 2015, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[50]  Qi Hao,et al.  A Survey on Software-Defined Network and OpenFlow: From Concept to Implementation , 2014, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[51]  Albert G. Greenberg,et al.  Ananta: cloud scale load balancing , 2013, SIGCOMM.

[52]  Thierry Turletti,et al.  Efficient caching in Content-Centric Networks using OpenFlow , 2013, 2013 IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS).

[53]  Mourad Debbabi,et al.  A Survey and a Layered Taxonomy of Software-Defined Networking , 2014, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[54]  Nick Feamster,et al.  Instrumenting home networks , 2010, HomeNets@SIGCOMM.

[55]  David Walker,et al.  Composing Software Defined Networks , 2013, NSDI.

[56]  Kuang-Ching Wang,et al.  OpenFlow-based load balancing for wireless mesh infrastructure , 2014, 2014 IEEE 11th Consumer Communications and Networking Conference (CCNC).

[57]  Mohamed Faten Zhani,et al.  Dynamic Controller Provisioning in Software Defined Networks , 2013, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM 2013).

[58]  Hung X. Nguyen,et al.  A frequency control algorithm for a mobile adhoc network , 2010 .

[59]  Nicola Blefari-Melazzi,et al.  An OpenFlow-based testbed for information centric networking , 2012, 2012 Future Network & Mobile Summit (FutureNetw).

[60]  Admela Jukan,et al.  Divide and conquer: Partitioning OSPF networks with SDN , 2014, 2015 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM).

[61]  Tom Rodden,et al.  Control and understanding: Owning your home network , 2012, 2012 Fourth International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS 2012).

[62]  Nick McKeown,et al.  OpenFlow: enabling innovation in campus networks , 2008, CCRV.

[63]  Xuan-Nam Nguyen.  Software Defined Networking in Wireless Mesh Networks , 2012 .

[64]  Yashar Ganjali,et al.  Kandoo: a framework for efficient and scalable offloading of control applications , 2012, HotSDN '12.

[65]  David Walker,et al.  Frenetic: a network programming language , 2011, ICFP.

[66]  A. Murat Tekalp,et al.  Distributed QoS Architectures for Multimedia Streaming Over Software Defined Networks , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia.

[67]  Sebastian Abt,et al.  Blessing or curse? Revisiting security aspects of Software-Defined Networking , 2014, 10th International Conference on Network and Service Management (CNSM) and Workshop.

[68]  Bo Li,et al.  Software-defined inter-domain routing revisited , 2016, 2016 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).

[69]  Ryan Saunders,et al.  P2P Offloading in Mobile Networks using SDN , 2016, SOSR.

[70]  Shu Yang,et al.  Towards Controller Placement for robust Software-Defined Networks , 2015, 2015 IEEE 34th International Performance Computing and Communications Conference (IPCCC).

[71]  Rob Enns,et al.  NETCONF Configuration Protocol , 2006, RFC.

[72]  Qi Shi,et al.  A centralized framework for smart access point selection based on the Fittingness Factor , 2016, 2016 23rd International Conference on Telecommunications (ICT).

[73]  Thierry Turletti,et al.  Towards truly heterogeneous internets: Bridging infrastructure-based and infrastructure-less networks , 2011, 2011 Third International Conference on Communication Systems and Networks (COMSNETS 2011).

[74]  Sujata Banerjee,et al.  DevoFlow: scaling flow management for high-performance networks , 2011, SIGCOMM 2011.

[75]  Anja Feldmann,et al.  Towards programmable enterprise WLANS with Odin , 2012, HotSDN '12.

[76]  George Roussos,et al.  Mobile Networks and Applications (MONET) Special Issue on Sensor Systems and Software , 2011, Mob. Networks Appl..

[77]  Riccardo Trivisonno,et al.  Network Resource Management and QoS in SDN-Enabled 5G Systems , 2014, GLOBECOM 2014.

[78]  M. Newman,et al.  Finding community structure in very large networks. , 2004, Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics.

[79]  Jim Esch,et al.  Software-Defined Networking: A Comprehensive Survey , 2015, Proc. IEEE.

[80]  Doan B. Hoang,et al.  SDN applications - The intent-based Northbound Interface realisation for extended applications , 2016, 2016 IEEE NetSoft Conference and Workshops (NetSoft).

[81]  Junzhou Luo,et al.  An inter-domain multi-path flow transfer mechanism based on SDN and multi-domain collaboration , 2015, 2015 IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM).

[82]  Nick Feamster,et al.  In VINI veritas: realistic and controlled network experimentation , 2006, SIGCOMM.

[83]  Jun Bi,et al.  On the Capacitated Controller Placement Problem in Software Defined Networks , 2014, IEEE Communications Letters.

[84]  David Hausheer,et al.  RASP: Using OpenFlow to push overlay streams into the Underlay , 2013, IEEE P2P 2013 Proceedings.

[85]  Philip Levis,et al.  OpenRadio: a programmable wireless dataplane , 2012, HotSDN '12.

[86]  Paul Hudak,et al.  Nettle: Taking the Sting Out of Programming Network Routers , 2011, PADL.

[87]  Nick Feamster,et al.  Procera: a language for high-level reactive network control , 2012, HotSDN '12.

[88]  Fang Hao,et al.  Application-aware data plane processing in SDN , 2014, HotSDN.

[89]  Clarissa Cassales Marquezan,et al.  Identifying latency factors in SDN-based Mobile Core Networks , 2016, 2016 IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communication (ISCC).

[90]  Pankaj Garg,et al.  NVGRE: Network Virtualization Using Generic Routing Encapsulation , 2015, RFC.

[91]  Sujata Banerjee,et al.  ElasticTree: Saving Energy in Data Center Networks , 2010, NSDI.

[92]  Anja Feldmann,et al.  OpenSDWN: programmatic control over home and enterprise WiFi , 2015, SOSR.

[93]  M. O. Sunay,et al.  Streaming Multicast Video over Software-Defined Networks , 2014, 2014 IEEE 11th International Conference on Mobile Ad Hoc and Sensor Systems.

[94]  Jun Bi,et al.  MLV: A Multi-dimension Routing Information Exchange Mechanism for Inter-domain SDN , 2015, 2015 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP).

[95]  Christian Bonnet,et al.  SDN-based distributed mobility management for 5G networks , 2016, 2016 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference.

[96]  Lei Shu,et al.  An energy-efficient SDN based sleep scheduling algorithm for WSNs , 2016, J. Netw. Comput. Appl..

[97]  Suman Banerjee,et al.  The anatomy of a large mobile massively multiplayer online game , 2012, SIGCOMM 2012.

[98]  Jinyong Jo,et al.  Software-defined home networking devices for multi-home visual sharing , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics.

[99]  Tao Jin,et al.  Application-awareness in SDN , 2013, SIGCOMM.

[100]  Phuoc Tran-Gia,et al.  SDN-Based Application-Aware Networking on the Example of YouTube Video Streaming , 2013, 2013 Second European Workshop on Software Defined Networks.

[101]  Francisco J. Ros,et al.  On reliable controller placements in Software-Defined Networks , 2016, Comput. Commun..

[102]  Scott Shenker,et al.  Ethane: taking control of the enterprise , 2007, SIGCOMM.

[103]  T. Robles,et al.  Experiences and Challenges in Deploying OpenFlow over Real Wireless Mesh Networks , 2013, IEEE Latin America Transactions.

[104]  Lei Liu,et al.  OpenFlow-based wavelength path control in transparent optical networks: A proof-of-concept demonstration , 2011, 2011 37th European Conference and Exhibition on Optical Communication.

[105]  Nick McKeown,et al.  Experimental demonstration of OpenFlow control of packet and circuit switches , 2010, 2010 Conference on Optical Fiber Communication (OFC/NFOEC), collocated National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference.

[106]  Rob Sherwood,et al.  Carving research slices out of your production networks with OpenFlow , 2010, CCRV.

[107]  R. L. Smeliansky,et al.  SDN for network security , 2014, 2014 First International Science and Technology Conference (Modern Networking Technologies) (MoNeTeC).

[108]  Jaudelice Cavalcante de Oliveira,et al.  Decoupling Policy from Routing with Software Defined Interdomain Management: Interdomain Routing for SDN-Based Networks , 2013, 2013 22nd International Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN).

[109]  José A. B. Fortes,et al.  Cloud Computing Security: What Changes with Software-Defined Networking? , 2014, Secure Cloud Computing.

[110]  Fernando A. Kuipers,et al.  SDN and Virtualization Solutions for the Internet of Things: A Survey , 2016, IEEE Access.

[111]  Avri Doria,et al.  General Switch Management Protocol (GSMP) V3 , 2002, RFC.

[112]  Timothy Winters,et al.  Virtualization of Home Network Gateways , 2014, Computer.

[113]  K. K. Ramakrishnan,et al.  NetVM: High Performance and Flexible Networking Using Virtualization on Commodity Platforms , 2014, IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management.

[114]  Rung-Hung Gau,et al.  SDN-based optimal traffic engineering for cellular networks with service chaining , 2016, 2016 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference.

[115]  Thierry Turletti,et al.  Software-defined-networking-enabled capacity sharing in user-centric networks , 2014, IEEE Communications Magazine.

[116]  Chia-Lung Liu,et al.  SDN-based Wireless Bandwidth Slicing , 2014, IOT 2014.

[117]  Samuel T. King,et al.  Debugging the data plane with anteater , 2011, SIGCOMM 2011.

[118]  Luca Veltri,et al.  Supporting information-centric functionality in software defined networks , 2012, 2012 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).

[119]  Timothy Wood,et al.  Cloud-Scale Application Performance Monitoring with SDN and NFV , 2015, 2015 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering.

[120]  Leandro Navarro-Moldes,et al.  Software Defined Networking for community network testbeds , 2013, 2013 IEEE 9th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob).

[121]  Ying Zhang,et al.  Fast failover for control traffic in Software-defined Networks , 2012, 2012 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM).

[122]  Kevin Benton,et al.  OpenFlow vulnerability assessment , 2013, HotSDN '13.

[123]  David Erickson,et al.  The beacon openflow controller , 2013, HotSDN '13.

[124]  Jun Bi,et al.  A framework for fine-grained inter-domain routing diversity via SDN , 2016, 2016 Eighth International Conference on Ubiquitous and Future Networks (ICUFN).

[125]  Nico Bayer,et al.  OpenFlow for Wireless Mesh Networks , 2011, 2011 Proceedings of 20th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN).

[126]  Andrew T. Campbell,et al.  Open Signaling for ATM, INTERNET and Mobile Networks (OPENSIG'98) , 1999, OPSR.

[127]  Rob Sherwood,et al.  Blueprint for introducing innovation into wireless mobile networks , 2010, VISA '10.

[128]  Rob Sherwood,et al.  OpenRoads: empowering research in mobile networks , 2010, CCRV.

[129]  Reza Nejabati,et al.  Software defined optical networks technology and infrastructure: Enabling software-defined optical network operations , 2013 .

[130]  Ahmed Toumanari,et al.  Survey of Security in Software-Defined Network , 2017 .

[131]  Frits C. R. Spieksma,et al.  Robustness of the Internet at the Topology and Routing Level , 2006, Research Results of the DICS Program.

[132]  Thierry Turletti,et al.  A Survey of Software-Defined Networking: Past, Present, and Future of Programmable Networks , 2014, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[133]  Nicola Blefari-Melazzi,et al.  Controller selection in a Wireless Mesh SDN under network partitioning and merging scenarios , 2014, ArXiv.

[134]  Luke M. Leslie,et al.  The Tempest-a practical framework for network programmability , 1998, IEEE Netw..

[135]  Nicola Blefari-Melazzi,et al.  Wireless Mesh Software Defined Networks (wmSDN) , 2013, 2013 IEEE 9th International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob).

[136]  Arjuna Sathiaseelan,et al.  Software-defined wireless mesh networks for internet access sharing , 2015, Comput. Networks.

[137]  Athanasios V. Vasilakos,et al.  A Survey on Service-Oriented Network Virtualization Toward Convergence of Networking and Cloud Computing , 2012, IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management.

[138]  Amin Vahdat,et al.  BwE: Flexible, Hierarchical Bandwidth Allocation for WAN Distributed Computing , 2015, Comput. Commun. Rev..

[139]  Mustafa Ç. Pınar,et al.  An exact algorithm for the capacitated vertex p-center problem , 2006, Comput. Oper. Res..

[140]  Sasu Tarkoma,et al.  Software defined networking for security enhancement in wireless mobile networks , 2014, Comput. Networks.

[141]  Anja Feldmann,et al.  OFRewind: Enabling Record and Replay Troubleshooting for Networks , 2011, USENIX Annual Technical Conference.

[142]  Rob Sherwood,et al.  The controller placement problem , 2012, HotSDN@SIGCOMM.

[143]  Yozo Shoji,et al.  WiFi Network Virtualization to Control the Connectivity of a Target Service , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Network and Service Management.