Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm for network design and management. By providing network programmability and the separation of control and data planes, SDN offers salient features such as simplified and centralized management, reduced complexity, and accelerated innovation. Using SDN, the control and management of network devices are performed by centralized software, called controllers. In particular, Software-Defined Wide Area Networks (SD-WANs) have made considerable headway in recent years. However, SDN can be a double-edged sword with regard to network resilience. The great reliance of SDN on the logically centralized control plane has heightened the concerns of research communities and industries about the resilience of the control plane. Although the controller provides flexible and fine-grained resilience management features that contribute to faster and more efficient failure detection and containment in the network, it is the Achilles' heel of SDN resilience. The resilience of control plane has a great impact on the functioning of the whole system. The challenges associated with the resilience of the control plane should be addressed properly to benefit from SDN's unprecedented capabilities. This dissertation investigates the aforementioned issues by categorizing them into two groups. First, the resilient design of the control plane is studied. The resilience of the control plane is strongly linked to the Controller Placement Problem (CPP), which deals with the positioning and assignment of controllers to the forwarding devices. A resilient CPP needs to assign more than one controller to a switch while it satisfies certain Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. We propose a solution for such a problem that, unlike most of the former studies, takes both the switch-controller/inter-controller latency requirements and the capacity of the controllers into account to meet the traffic loads of switches. The proposed algorithms, one of which has a polynomial-time complexity, adopt a clique-based approach in graph theory to find high-quality solutions heuristically. Second, due to the high dynamics of SD-WANs in terms of variations in traffic loads of switches and the QoS requirements that further affect the incurred load on the controllers, adjustments to the controller placement are inevitable over time. Therefore, resilient switch reassignment and incremental controller placement are proposed to reuse the existing geographically distributed controllers as much as possible or make slight modifications to the controller placement. This assists the service providers in decreasing their operational and maintenance costs. We model these problems as variants of the problem of scheduling on parallel machines while considering the capacity of controllers, reassignment cost, and resiliency (which have not been addressed in the existing research work) and propose approximation algorithms to solve them efficiently. To sum up, CPP has a great impact on the resilience of SDN control plane and subsequently the correct functioning of the whole network. Therefore, tailored mechanisms to enhance the resiliency of the control plane should be applied not only at the design stage of SD-WANs but also during their lifespan to handle the dynamics and new requirements of such networks over time. / Graduate

Thanks to the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm, which segregates the control and data layers of traditional networks, large and scalable networks can now be dynamically configured and managed. It is a game-changing networking technology that provides increased flexibility and scalability through centralized management. The Controller Placement Problem (CPP), however, poses a crucial problem in SDN because it directly impacts the efficiency and performance of the network. The CPP attempts to determine the most ideal number of controllers for any network and their corresponding relative positioning. This is to generally minimize communication delays between switches and controllers and maintain network reliability and resilience. In this thesis, we present a modified Genetic Algorithm (GA) technique to solve the CPP efficiently. Our approach makes use the GA’s capabilities to obtain the best controller placement correlation based on important factors such as network delay, reliability and availability. We further optimize the process by means of certain deduced constraints to allow faster convergence. In this study, our primary objective is to optimize the control plane design by identifying the optimal controller placement, which minimizes delay and significantly improves both the switch-to-controller and controller-to-controller link availability. We introduce an advanced genetic algorithm methodology and showcase a precise technique for optimizing the inherent availability constraints. To evaluate the trade-offs between the deployment of controllers and the associated costs of enhancing particular node link availabilities, we performed computational experiments on three distinct networks of varying sizes. Overall, our work contributes to the growth trajectory of SDN research by offering a novel GA-based resolution to the controller placement problem that can improve network performance and dependability.

O paradigma SDN simplifica o gerenciamento da rede ao concentrar todas as tarefas de controle em uma única entidade, o controlador. Nesse modo de operação, os dispositivos de encaminhamento só funcionam de forma completa enquanto conectados a um controlador. Neste contexto, a literatura recente identificou questões fundamentais, como o isolamento de dispositivos em função de disrupções na rede e a sobrecarga de um controlador, e propôs estratégias de posicionamento do controlador para enfrentá-las. Contudo, as propostas atuais têm limitações cruciais: (i) a conectividade dispositivo-controlador é modelada usando um único caminho, ainda que na prática possam ocorrer múltiplas conexões concorrentes; (ii) alterações no comportamento da chegada de novos fluxos são manipulados sob demanda, assumindo que a rede em si pode sustentar altas taxas de requisição; e (iii) mecanismos de recuperação de falhas requerem informações pré-definidas, que, por sua vez, não são otimizadas. Esta dissertação apresenta Survivor, uma nova abordagem de posicionamento do controlador para redes WAN que visa enfrentar esses desafios. A abordagem trata três aspectos de forma explícita durante o projeto da rede: a conectividade, a capacidade e a recuperação. Além disso, tais aspectos são planejados para dois estados distintos da rede: pré e pós-disrupção. Em outras palavras, a rede é configurada da melhor forma tanto para operação normal, quanto para operação após eventos de disrupção. Para este fim, a abordagem é dividida em duas etapas. A primeira define o posicionamento de instâncias do controlador, enquanto a segunda especifica uma lista de controladores de backup para cada dispositivo na rede. Ademais, são desenvolvidas duas estratégias com base na abordagem Survivor. A primeira, implementada em Programação Linear Inteira, garante uma solução ótima a um custo computacional alto. A segunda, implementada através de heurísticas, fornece soluções sub-ótimas a um custo computacional muito mais baixo. Comparações com o estado-da-arte mostram que a abordagem Survivor provê ganhos significativos na sobrevivência (identificado na probabilidade mais baixa de perda de conectividade) e no estado convergente da rede através de mecanismos de recuperação mais inteligentes. / The SDN paradigm simplifies network management by focusing all control tasks into a single entity, the controller. In this way, forwarding devices can only operate correctly while connected to a logically centralized controller. Within this context, recent literature identified fundamental issues, such as device isolation due to disruptions in the network and controller overload, and proposed controller placement strategies to tackle them. However, current proposals have crucial limitations: (i) device-controller connectivity is modeled using single paths, yet in practice multiple concurrent connections may occur; (ii) peaks in the arrival of new flows are only handled on-demand, assuming that the network itself can sustain high request rates; and (iii) failover mechanisms require predefined information which, in turn, has been overlooked. This dissertation presents Survivor, a novel controller placement approach for WAN networks that addresses these challenges. The approach explicitly considers the following three aspects in the network design process: connectivity, capacity and recovery. Moreover, these aspects are planned for two distinct states of the network: pre and postdisruption. In other words, the network is configured optimally for both normal operation and for operation after disruption events. To this end, the approach is divided into two steps. The first defines the positioning of the controller instances, and the second specifies a list of backup controllers for each device on the network. Moreover, two strategies based on Survivor are developed. The first strategy, implemented with Integer Linear Programming, guarantees an optimal solution with a high computational cost. The second strategy, implemented using heuristics, provides sub-optimal solutions with a much lower computational cost. Comparisons to the state-of-the-art show that the Survivor approach provides significant increases in network survivability (identified with the lowest probability of connectivity loss) and converged network state through smarter recovery mechanisms.

O paradigma SDN simplifica o gerenciamento da rede ao concentrar todas as tarefas de controle em uma única entidade, o controlador. Nesse modo de operação, os dispositivos de encaminhamento só funcionam de forma completa enquanto conectados a um controlador. Neste contexto, a literatura recente identificou questões fundamentais, como o isolamento de dispositivos em função de disrupções na rede e a sobrecarga de um controlador, e propôs estratégias de posicionamento do controlador para enfrentá-las. Contudo, as propostas atuais têm limitações cruciais: (i) a conectividade dispositivo-controlador é modelada usando um único caminho, ainda que na prática possam ocorrer múltiplas conexões concorrentes; (ii) alterações no comportamento da chegada de novos fluxos são manipulados sob demanda, assumindo que a rede em si pode sustentar altas taxas de requisição; e (iii) mecanismos de recuperação de falhas requerem informações pré-definidas, que, por sua vez, não são otimizadas. Esta dissertação apresenta Survivor, uma nova abordagem de posicionamento do controlador para redes WAN que visa enfrentar esses desafios. A abordagem trata três aspectos de forma explícita durante o projeto da rede: a conectividade, a capacidade e a recuperação. Além disso, tais aspectos são planejados para dois estados distintos da rede: pré e pós-disrupção. Em outras palavras, a rede é configurada da melhor forma tanto para operação normal, quanto para operação após eventos de disrupção. Para este fim, a abordagem é dividida em duas etapas. A primeira define o posicionamento de instâncias do controlador, enquanto a segunda especifica uma lista de controladores de backup para cada dispositivo na rede. Ademais, são desenvolvidas duas estratégias com base na abordagem Survivor. A primeira, implementada em Programação Linear Inteira, garante uma solução ótima a um custo computacional alto. A segunda, implementada através de heurísticas, fornece soluções sub-ótimas a um custo computacional muito mais baixo. Comparações com o estado-da-arte mostram que a abordagem Survivor provê ganhos significativos na sobrevivência (identificado na probabilidade mais baixa de perda de conectividade) e no estado convergente da rede através de mecanismos de recuperação mais inteligentes. / The SDN paradigm simplifies network management by focusing all control tasks into a single entity, the controller. In this way, forwarding devices can only operate correctly while connected to a logically centralized controller. Within this context, recent literature identified fundamental issues, such as device isolation due to disruptions in the network and controller overload, and proposed controller placement strategies to tackle them. However, current proposals have crucial limitations: (i) device-controller connectivity is modeled using single paths, yet in practice multiple concurrent connections may occur; (ii) peaks in the arrival of new flows are only handled on-demand, assuming that the network itself can sustain high request rates; and (iii) failover mechanisms require predefined information which, in turn, has been overlooked. This dissertation presents Survivor, a novel controller placement approach for WAN networks that addresses these challenges. The approach explicitly considers the following three aspects in the network design process: connectivity, capacity and recovery. Moreover, these aspects are planned for two distinct states of the network: pre and postdisruption. In other words, the network is configured optimally for both normal operation and for operation after disruption events. To this end, the approach is divided into two steps. The first defines the positioning of the controller instances, and the second specifies a list of backup controllers for each device on the network. Moreover, two strategies based on Survivor are developed. The first strategy, implemented with Integer Linear Programming, guarantees an optimal solution with a high computational cost. The second strategy, implemented using heuristics, provides sub-optimal solutions with a much lower computational cost. Comparisons to the state-of-the-art show that the Survivor approach provides significant increases in network survivability (identified with the lowest probability of connectivity loss) and converged network state through smarter recovery mechanisms.

O paradigma SDN simplifica o gerenciamento da rede ao concentrar todas as tarefas de controle em uma única entidade, o controlador. Nesse modo de operação, os dispositivos de encaminhamento só funcionam de forma completa enquanto conectados a um controlador. Neste contexto, a literatura recente identificou questões fundamentais, como o isolamento de dispositivos em função de disrupções na rede e a sobrecarga de um controlador, e propôs estratégias de posicionamento do controlador para enfrentá-las. Contudo, as propostas atuais têm limitações cruciais: (i) a conectividade dispositivo-controlador é modelada usando um único caminho, ainda que na prática possam ocorrer múltiplas conexões concorrentes; (ii) alterações no comportamento da chegada de novos fluxos são manipulados sob demanda, assumindo que a rede em si pode sustentar altas taxas de requisição; e (iii) mecanismos de recuperação de falhas requerem informações pré-definidas, que, por sua vez, não são otimizadas. Esta dissertação apresenta Survivor, uma nova abordagem de posicionamento do controlador para redes WAN que visa enfrentar esses desafios. A abordagem trata três aspectos de forma explícita durante o projeto da rede: a conectividade, a capacidade e a recuperação. Além disso, tais aspectos são planejados para dois estados distintos da rede: pré e pós-disrupção. Em outras palavras, a rede é configurada da melhor forma tanto para operação normal, quanto para operação após eventos de disrupção. Para este fim, a abordagem é dividida em duas etapas. A primeira define o posicionamento de instâncias do controlador, enquanto a segunda especifica uma lista de controladores de backup para cada dispositivo na rede. Ademais, são desenvolvidas duas estratégias com base na abordagem Survivor. A primeira, implementada em Programação Linear Inteira, garante uma solução ótima a um custo computacional alto. A segunda, implementada através de heurísticas, fornece soluções sub-ótimas a um custo computacional muito mais baixo. Comparações com o estado-da-arte mostram que a abordagem Survivor provê ganhos significativos na sobrevivência (identificado na probabilidade mais baixa de perda de conectividade) e no estado convergente da rede através de mecanismos de recuperação mais inteligentes. / The SDN paradigm simplifies network management by focusing all control tasks into a single entity, the controller. In this way, forwarding devices can only operate correctly while connected to a logically centralized controller. Within this context, recent literature identified fundamental issues, such as device isolation due to disruptions in the network and controller overload, and proposed controller placement strategies to tackle them. However, current proposals have crucial limitations: (i) device-controller connectivity is modeled using single paths, yet in practice multiple concurrent connections may occur; (ii) peaks in the arrival of new flows are only handled on-demand, assuming that the network itself can sustain high request rates; and (iii) failover mechanisms require predefined information which, in turn, has been overlooked. This dissertation presents Survivor, a novel controller placement approach for WAN networks that addresses these challenges. The approach explicitly considers the following three aspects in the network design process: connectivity, capacity and recovery. Moreover, these aspects are planned for two distinct states of the network: pre and postdisruption. In other words, the network is configured optimally for both normal operation and for operation after disruption events. To this end, the approach is divided into two steps. The first defines the positioning of the controller instances, and the second specifies a list of backup controllers for each device on the network. Moreover, two strategies based on Survivor are developed. The first strategy, implemented with Integer Linear Programming, guarantees an optimal solution with a high computational cost. The second strategy, implemented using heuristics, provides sub-optimal solutions with a much lower computational cost. Comparisons to the state-of-the-art show that the Survivor approach provides significant increases in network survivability (identified with the lowest probability of connectivity loss) and converged network state through smarter recovery mechanisms.