Current SDN controllers have been designed based on a monolithic approach that integrates all of services and applications into one single, huge program. The monolithic design of SDN controllers restricts programmers who build management applications to specific programming interfaces and services that a given SDN controller provides, making application development dependent on the controller, and thereby restricting portability of management applications across controllers. Furthermore, the monolithic approach means an SDN controller must be recompiled whenever a change is made, and does not provide an easy way to add new functionality or scale to handle large networks. To overcome the weaknesses inherent in the monolithic approach, the next generation of SDN controllers must use a distributed, microservice architecture that disaggregates the control plane by dividing the monolithic controller into a set of cooperative microservices. Disaggregation allows a programmer to choose a programming language that is appropriate for each microservice. In this dissertation, we describe steps taken towards disaggregating the SDN control plane, consider potential ways to achieve the goal, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. We propose a distributed architecture that disaggregates controller software into a small controller core and a set of cooperative microservices. In addition, we present a software defined network programming framework called Umbrella that provides a set of abstractions that programmers can use for writing of SDN management applications independent of NB APIs that SDN controllers provide. Finally, we present an intent-based network programming framework called OSDF to provide a high-level policy based API for programming of network devices using SDN. <br>

Développer des applications réseaux pour des routeurs programmables basés sur les Network Processors (NPs) implique l'utilisation de langages de bas-niveau et d'outils propriétaires fortement dépendants des architectures matérielles sous-jacentes. Le code source, généralement écrit en langage assembleur, n'est pas facile à écrire et cause des problèmes de maintenance. Les applications résultantes sont également difficiles à déboguer. Dans ce mémoire nous proposons NETLANG, un nouveau langage de programmation de haut-niveau dédié aux NPs. De plus d'être un langage simple et élégant, de réduire les coûts de développement et de la maintenance, et d'améliorer la réutilisation du code, NETLANG a pour objectif essentiel de décrire le comportement des paquets dans un NP. NETLANG est un langage qui permet de développer des applications de traitement de paquets. Il établit deux niveaux. Le premier niveau du langage offre une abstraction et une description du routeur à travers un pipeline de tables OpenFlow et des règles de forwarding ayant l'aptitude d'être modifiées dynamiquement et donc de permettre de changer le comportement du routeur à la volée. La sémantique du langage est inspirée du protocole OpenFlow qui a permis d'exprimer les principales tâches de traitement de paquets telles que le parsing, le lookup et la modification. Le langage est bâti en respectant le modèle des Software Defined Networks (SDNs) qui définit un nouveau plan de séparation entre le control plane et le data plane. Le deuxième niveau de NETLANG est traduit en matériel et permet l'adaptabilité du langage à plusieurs plateformes. Des adaptateurs spécifiques à des plateformes différentes sont intégrés au compilateur de NETLANG et permettent de rendre le langage portable. En effet, nous avons utilisé deux environnements pour l'implémentation de NETLANG ; le NP4 d'EZchip caractérisé par sa structure de TOPs (Task Optimized Processors) en pipeline et le NFP-3240 de Netronome connu pour son parallélisme et l'exploitation du multithreading. La validation de NETLANG s'est basée sur un ensemble d'applications réseau ayant des complexités et des domaines différents. A travers ce mémoire nous avons démontré qu'on est capable d'avoir aujourd'hui un langage pour les routeurs programmables. La sémantique d'OpenFlow, sur laquelle nous avons basé notre langage NETLANG, est suffisante et même pertinente en termes de description de comportement des paquets dans un NP. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : langages à domaine spécifique, réseaux programmables, processeurs de réseau.

Network virtualization is becoming a fundamental building block of future Internet architectures. By adding networking resources into the “cloud”, it is possible for users to rent virtual routers from the underlying network infrastructure, connect them with virtual channels to form a virtual network, and tailor the virtual network (e.g., load application-specific networking protocols, libraries and software stacks on to the virtual routers) to carry out a specific task. In addition, network virtualization technology allows such special-purpose virtual networks to co-exist on the same set of network infrastructure without interfering with each other. Although the underlying network resources needed to support virtualized networks are rapidly becoming available, constructing a virtual network from the ground up and using the network is a challenging and labor-intensive task, one best left to experts. To tackle this problem, we introduce the concept of a HyperNet, a pre-built, pre-configured network package that a user can easily deploy or access a virtual network to carry out a specific task (e.g., multicast video conferencing). HyperNets package together the network topology configuration, software, and network services needed to create and deploy a custom virtual network. Users download HyperNets from HyperNet repositories and then “run” them on virtualized network infrastructure much like users download and run virtual appliances on a virtual machine. To support the HyperNet abstraction, we created a Network Hypervisor service that provides a set of APIs that can be called to create a virtual network with certain characteristics. To evaluate the HyperNet architecture, we implemented several example Hyper-Nets and ran them on our prototype implementation of the Network Hypervisor. Our experiments show that the Hypervisor API can be used to compose almost any special-purpose network – networks capable of carrying out functions that the current Internet does not provide. Moreover, the design of our HyperNet architecture is highly extensible, enabling developers to write high-level libraries (using the Network Hypervisor APIs) to achieve complicated tasks.

SDN軟體定義網路，是一種新的以軟體為基礎的網路架構及技術。最大的特點為將傳統二、三層網路設備的控制功能與設備本身數據轉發功能進行分離。由於分離後的控制功能集中統一管理，且其具有軟體設計的靈活性，因此，網路管理人員對底層設備的資源控制變得更加容易，進而大大提升網路自動化管理能力，並有效解決目前網路系統所面臨的如網路拓樸的靈活性差，規模擴充受限等問題。 近年來隨著寬頻上網，物聯網，雲端計算，移動裝置等新技術及新業務的快速發展，在愈來愈多各種型態連網裝置快速增加的情況下，同時也使人們對IP位址的需求日增。然而目前IPv4卻無法針對此需求，提供一個相對大量的位址，也因此對於IPv4到IPv6網路的升級有其迫切性與必要性。IPv4過渡到IPv6網路目前提出的方法有三種：Dual Stack、Tunneling以及Translation。Tunneling及Translation皆有其效能上的瓶頸，為過渡期間的應用技術。目前主要推動的技術為Dual Stack，在Dual Stack模式下，可以由IPv4網路逐步演進成IPv4與IPv6共存互通，最後再形成以IPv6為主的網路。現階段愈來愈多的IPv6設備與節點，為順利的連接舊的IPv4與新的IPv6網路，藉由具有Dual Stack能力的SDN交換機網路設備，將是個有效的解決方案，也將使得IPv6網路的管理及升級更具有彈性。SDN、IPv6為現今幾個熱門的研究議題，看似不同領域的電腦相關技術，然而若使上述幾種技術相互連結使用，將使得未來之網路環境更具備可擴充性、可管理性、靈活性與敏捷性。 為了解SDN交換機上的效能，本論文提出一個測試平台架構。利用Linux系統做為待測網路設備，並在待測網路設備上模擬Bridge、Router、Open vSwitch SDN交換機等不同環境。測試端為Linux系統，並使用Iperf測試軟體，透過對待測網路設備不同模擬環境下發送不同大小的封包做效能測試。實驗中同時也量測IPv4網路協定，以作為和傳統網路效能的比較。另外，也量測了SDN交換機同時在IPv4及IPv6雙協定的負載下，和單獨的IPv4協定或IPv6協定做效能上的差異比較。最後，也模擬同時在多主機下對待測網路設備進行封包的發送與接收，以測試SDN交換機在多主機下的負載狀況。 經由測量的數據分析，IPv6在Open vSwitch SDN交換機上運行效能幾乎等同於傳統的IPv4，也驗證IPv6在交換機上的可行性。此外，當SDN交換機同時運行在IPv4和IPv6雙協定環境下，在整體效能的表現上和單獨運行單協定相比幾近相同，也證明SDN交換機同時運行在雙協定下的可行性。由多主機負載的實驗數據分析，在以UDP協定做資料傳送時，愈多的主機因為資源的競爭問題愈大外，間接也會造成愈多packet loss。並且對較大的封包，packet loss的問題也愈嚴重，但相對來看，在以TCP協定做資料傳送時，total throughput的瓶頸則決定於網路卡的效能，即效能愈好的網路卡，愈能提升多主機環境下的total throughput。 / Software Defined Network (SDN) is a new software-based network architecture and technique. The main characteristic is to separate the control functions and the data forwarding functions of the traditional layer 2 or layer 3 network devices. Since the separated control functions can be centralized management with software design flexibility, thus network managers can control the underlying resource device easier, which greatly enhances the ability to automate network management as well as effectively resolves the problems confronted by conventional network system, such as lack of network topology flexibility, limited network scalability. In recent decades, along with broadband Internet access, Internet of Things, cloud computing, the rapid development of new technologies and the rapid increase of network devices, it has increased the demand for IP address to a great extent. While IPv4 can not meet the current demand to offer a relatively large number of addresses and thus it is urgent and essential to upgrade IPv4 to IPv6 network. Transition from IPv4 to IPv6 network currently is proposed in these three ways which respectively named Dual Stack, Tunneling, and Translation. Tunneling and Translation have their performance bottlenecks and only Dual Stack mode can be gradually evolved from IPv4 to IPv4 and IPv6 coexistence network, eventually toward the IPv6-based network. There are increasing numbers of IPv6 devices and nodes with the aim to connect IPv4 network to IPv6 network, through SDN switch with Dual Stack network which would be an effective solution. It makes the IPv6 network management and maintenance more flexible. IPv6 and SDN are two hot researching issues currently. If they can be linked with each other, it will be more scalable and flexible for the network environment in the future. In order to understand the effectiveness of the SDN switch, this paper presents a test platform architecture. Using Linux systems as a Device under Testing, we simulate Bridge, Router, Open vSwitch SDN switch network equipment on it. Test end is Linux system, and Iperf serves as a test software. Through simulation of the Device under Testing in different scenarios, we have performed many tests on different sizes of packets. The experiment also measures IPv4 network protocol and compares with traditional network. In order to compare with the performance of separate IPv4 or IPv6 protocol, the loading of SDN switch running both of IPv4 and IPv6 dual protocol is measured. Finally, simulation on multi-host is tested under Device under Testing in sending and receiving packet which is to test SDN switch under a multi-host loading conditions. Through the analysis of the measured data, the performance of IPv6 running on the Open Switch SDN switch is equivalent to that of the traditional IPv4. It also proves the feasibility and efficiency of IPv6 on the switch. In addition, when SDN switch running in IPv4 and IPv6 Dual Stack mode simultaneously, the overall performance is almost exactly the same as single IPv4 or IPv6 protocol, which proves the feasibility of SDN switch in Dual Stack mode. Based on the analysis of multiple-host loading, UDP protocols were used during data transfer. Apart from multi-hosts with more competition for resourcing issue, a packet loss will be aroused indirectly. We observed that larger packets can cause more packet loss. However, with TCP protocols during data transfer, total throughput bottleneck is determined by the effectiveness of the network card. Therefore, the better the effectiveness of the network card is, the higher total throughput can be provided in multi-host environment.

The aim of this master thesis is to create a web-based graphical user interface which communicates with a Software Defined Controller and the OpenFlow protocol to provide a basic network management and a topology graph, then to describe main aspects of the OpenFlow technology and to optimalize the chosen SDN Controller for full support in a multi-vendor enviroment.

Redes Definidas por Software ajudam a simplificar a programabilidade da rede ao desacoplar o plano de controle dos dispositivos de encaminhamento, e implementá-lo em um controlador logicamente centralizado. Apesar de permitir uma separação de conceitos mais clara, essa característica cria também uma relação de dependência entre controlador e dispositivos. Falhas no plano de controle prejudicam a visibilidade do estado da rede no controlador e podem tornar a rede inutilizável caso os dispositivos de encaminhamento sejam isolados. A relevância deste problema motivou uma série de propostas, incluindo a distribuição física de instâncias de controle e a delegação de tarefas aos dispositivos de encaminhamento. Esta dissertação contém a proposta e a avaliação de uma arquitetura que usa redes celulares de dados (4G) como enlaces reservas para o plano de controle. Nenhum trabalho anterior explorou esta ideia, apesar da pesquisa recente envolvendo Redes Definidas por Software e redes sem fio. A avaliação experimental permite uma melhor compreensão ao responder três perguntas: (i) Como o comportamento do tráfego do plano de controle é afetado pelas características de enlaces celulares, (ii) quão rapidamente o plano de controle é migrado para o enlace reserva quando uma falha ocorre e (iii) como funções de rede que dependem do estado da rede em um instante se comportam em tal arquitetura. Apesar da já esperada maior latência dos enlaces celulares, esta arquitetura mantém o funcionamento parcial de tarefas que dependem de visão global da rede quando falhas ocorrem nos enlaces primários, de maneira simples e com custo acessível. O grau de manutenção de tais tarefas é diretamente relacionado com sua dependência da rapidez de reação do plano de controle a eventos de rede. O principal benefício de prevenir a partição do plano de controle é a manutenção de uma visão global consistente da rede. / Software Defined Networks simplify network programmability by detaching the control plane from forwarding devices and deploying it into a logically centralized controller. While this allows a clearer separation of concerns, it also creates a dependency between them. Failures in the control plane break the controller view of the network state and could render the network unusable if forwarding devices cannot be reached. The relevance of this problem has led to a range of proposals, including physical distribution of controller instances and delegation of concerns to forwarding devices. This dissertation features the proposal and evaluation of an architecture that leverages cellular data networks (4G) as control plane backup links. No previous work has explored this idea, despite the recent research intersecting SDN and wireless networks. The experimental evaluation provides insights towards answering three research questions: (i) How is the behavior of control plane traffic affected by the characteristics of cellular links, (ii) how quickly is the control plane handed over to the backup link when a failure occurs and (iii) how well do network functions that rely on a snapshot of the network state behave on such an architecture. Despite the expected higher latency of cellular links, this architecture maintains partial functionality of tasks that depend on global network awareness when failures occur in primary control links in a simple, affordable fashion. The degree to which the functionality of these tasks is maintained is directly related to its dependency on the timeliness of control plane reaction to network events. The main benefit of preventing control plane partition is to maintain a consistent global view of the network.

Redes Definidas por Software (Software-Defined Networking – SDN) é um paradigma emergente que sem dúvida facilita a inovação e simplifica o gerenciamento da rede. SDN provém esses recursos baseado em quatro princípios fundamentais: (i) os planos de controle e encaminhamento da rede são claramente desacoplados, (ii) as decisões de encaminhamento são baseadas em fluxo ao invés de baseadas em destino, (iii) a lógica de encaminhamento é abstraída do hardware para uma camada de software e (iv) um elemento, chamado controlador, é introduzido para coordenar as decisões de encaminhamento. Atualmente muito se tem discutido acerca do uso de SDN em benefício do gerenciamento de redes – onde SDN é considerado uma ferramenta de gerenciamento –, ao invés de se discutir quais são os novos desafios de gerenciamento que esse paradigma introduz. No contexto de SDN, atividades de gerenciamento como monitoramento, visualização e configuração podem ser consideravelmente diferentes das mesmas realizadas em redes tradicionais, merecendo a devida atenção. Por exemplo, um controlador SDN pode ser customizado por administradores de rede de acordo com suas necessidades. Essas customizações podem impactar em consumo de recursos e desempenho no encaminhamento de tráfego. Tal impacto é difícil de se avaliar porque solucões de gerenciamento de redes tradicionais nao foram projetadas para lidar com o contexto de SDN. Como consequencia, uma solução de gerenciamento de SDN deve ser capaz de ajudar o administrador a entender e controlar como o comportamento do controlador SDN afeta a rede. Considerando esse contexto, nós inicialmente desenvolvemos uma análise do tráfego de controle em SDN visando melhor entender o impacto da comunicação entre controlador e dispositivos de encaminhamento. Em seguida, nós propomos uma abordagem interativa para gerenciamento de SDN através do monitoramento, visualização e configuração da rede incluindo o administrador em um ciclo de atividades de gerenciamento, onde metricas específicas de SDN são monitoradas, processadas e mostradas em visualizações interativas. Assim, o administrador da rede é capaz de configurar/ reconfigurar parâmetros de SDN de acordo com seu/sua necessidade. Para demonstrar a viabilidade da nossa abordagem, nós desenvolvemos um protótipo chamado SDN Interactive Manager. Os resultados obtidos através do protótipo apresentaram que a nossa abordagem é capaz de auxiliar o administrador a melhor entender o impacto da configuração de parâmetros relativos a SDN no desempenho da rede como um todo. / Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm that arguably facilitates network innovation and simplifies network management. SDN enables these features based on four fundamental principles: (i) network control and forwarding planes are clearly decoupled, (ii) forwarding decisions are flow-based instead of destination-based, (iii) the network forwarding logic is abstracted from a hardware to a programmable software layer, and (iv) an element, called controller, is introduced to coordinate network-wide forwarding decisions. Nowadays, much has been discussed about using SDN principles to improve network management – where SDN is taken as a management tool –, instead of discussing which are the new management challenges that this network paradigm introduces. In the context of SDN, management activities, such as monitoring, visualization, and configuration can be considerably different from traditional networks, thus deserving proper attention. For example, an SDN controller can be customized by network administrators according to their needs. Such customizations might pose an impact on resource consumption and traffic forwarding performance, which is difficult to assess because traditional network management solutions were not designed to cope with the context of SDN. As a consequence, an SDN-tailored management solution must be able to help the administrator to understand and control how the SDN controller behavior affects the network. Considering this context, we initially performed an analysis of control traffic in SDN aiming to better understand the impact of the communication between the controller and forwarding devices. Afterwards, we propose an interactive approach to SDN management through monitoring, visualization, and configuration that includes the administrator in the management loop, where SDN-specific metrics are monitored, processed, and displayed in interactive visualizations. Thus, the administrator is able to make decisions and configure/reconfigure SDN-related parameters according to his/her needs. To show the feasibility of our approach a prototype has been developed, called SDN Interactive Manager. The results obtained with this prototype show that our approach can help the administrator to better understand the impact of configuring SDN-related parameters on the overall network performance.

Current technological advances have caused an exponential growth of the number of mobile Internet-connected devices, along with their respective traffic demands. To cope with this increase of traffic demands, fifth generation (5G) network architectures will need to provide multi-gigabit capacity at the access base stations (BSs), through the deployment of ultra-dense small cells (SCs) operating with millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequencies, e.g. 60 GHz. To connect the BSs to the core network, a robust and high capacity backhaul infrastructure is required. As it is unfeasible to connect all the SCs through optical fiber links, a solution for the future 5G backhaul relies on the usage of mmWave frequencies to interconnect the SCs, forming multi-hop wireless mesh topologies. In this thesis, we explore the application of the Software-defined Networking (SDN) paradigm for the management of a SC wireless backhaul. With SDN, the data and control planes are separated and the network management is done by a centralized controller entity that has a global network view. To that end, we provide multiple contributions. Firstly, we provide an SDN-based architecture to manage SC backhaul networks, which include an out-of-band Long Term Evolution (LTE) control channel and where we consider aspects such as energy efficiency, resiliency and flexible backhaul operation. Secondly, we demonstrate the benefit of the wireless backhaul configuration using the SDN controller, which can be used to improve the wireless resource allocation and provide resiliency mechanisms in the network. Finally, we investigate how a SC mesh backhaul can be optimally reconfigured between different topologies, focusing on minimizing the network disruption during the reconfiguration. / The growth of mobile devices, along with their traffic demands, is expected to saturate the current mobile networks soon. To cope with such demand increase, fifth generation (5G) network architectures will need to provide multi-gigabit capacity at the access level, through the deployment of a massive amount of ultra-dense small cells (SCs). To connect the access and core networks, a robust and high capacity backhaul is required. To that end, mmWave links that operate at e.g. 60 GHz, can be used to interconnect the SCs, forming multi-hop wireless mesh topologies.   In this thesis, we study the application of the Software-defined Networking (SDN) paradigm for the management of a SC wireless backhaul. Firstly, we provide an SDN-based architecture to manage SC backhaul networks, which includes an out-of-band control channel and where we consider aspects such as energy efficiency, resiliency and flexible backhaul operation. Secondly, we show the benefits of the wireless backhaul configuration using the SDN controller, which can be used to improve the wireless resource allocation and provide network resiliency. Finally, we investigate how a SC mesh backhaul can be optimally reconfigured between different topologies, while minimizing the network disruption during the reconfiguration.

abstract: Commercial load balancers are often in use, and the production network at Arizona State University (ASU) is no exception. However, because the load balancer uses IP addresses, the solution does not apply to all applications. One such application is Rsyslog. This software processes syslog packets and stores them in files. The loss rate of incoming log packets is high due to the incoming rate of the data. The Rsyslog servers are overwhelmed by the continuous data stream. To solve this problem a software defined networking (SDN) based load balancer is designed to perform a transport-level load balancing over the incoming load to Rsyslog servers. In this solution the load is forwarded to one Rsyslog server at a time, according to one of a Round-Robin, Random, or Load-Based policy. This gives time to other servers to process the data they have received and prevent them from being overwhelmed. The evaluation of the proposed solution is conducted a physical testbed with the same data feed as the commercial solution. The results suggest that the SDN-based load balancer is competitive with the commercial load balancer. Replacing the software OpenFlow switch with a hardware switch is likely to further improve the results. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Computer Science 2015

abstract: The ease of programmability in Software-Defined Networking (SDN) makes it a great platform for implementation of various initiatives that involve application deployment, dynamic topology changes, and decentralized network management in a multi-tenant data center environment. However, implementing security solutions in such an environment is fraught with policy conflicts and consistency issues with the hardness of this problem being affected by the distribution scheme for the SDN controllers. In this dissertation, a formalism for flow rule conflicts in SDN environments is introduced. This formalism is realized in Brew, a security policy analysis framework implemented on an OpenDaylight SDN controller. Brew has comprehensive conflict detection and resolution modules to ensure that no two flow rules in a distributed SDN-based cloud environment have conflicts at any layer; thereby assuring consistent conflict-free security policy implementation and preventing information leakage. Techniques for global prioritization of flow rules in a decentralized environment are presented, using which all SDN flow rule conflicts are recognized and classified. Strategies for unassisted resolution of these conflicts are also detailed. Alternately, if administrator input is desired to resolve conflicts, a novel visualization scheme is implemented to help the administrators view the conflicts in an aesthetic manner. The correctness, feasibility and scalability of the Brew proof-of-concept prototype is demonstrated. Flow rule conflict avoidance using a buddy address space management technique is studied as an alternate to conflict detection and resolution in highly dynamic cloud systems attempting to implement an SDN-based Moving Target Defense (MTD) countermeasures. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Computer Science 2017