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Resource Allocation for Reliable Communication Between Controllers and Switches in SDN

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Abstract

In software-defined networking (SDN), the communication between controllers and switches is very important, for switch can only work by relying on flow tables received from its controller. Therefore, how to ensure the reliability of the communication between controllers and switches is a key problem in SDN. In this paper, we study this problem from two aspects: the controller placement and the resource backup aspect. Firstly, in order to implement the reliable communication and meet the required propagation delay between controllers and switches, a min-cover based controller placement approach is proposed. Then, in order to protect both controllers and control paths from regional failure, a backup method based on an exponential decay failure model is proposed, which considers the regional influence and the survivability of backup controllers and control paths. Simulations show that our controller placement approach can meet the reliability and delay requirement with appropriate controller allocation scheme, and our backup method can improve the survivability of backup controllers and control paths while ensuring the performance of control network.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61501044).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Networking and Switching Technology, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, No. 10, Xi Tu Cheng Road, Beijing, China

    Ying Wang, Qinghong Zhong, Xuesong Qiu & Wenjing Li

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  1. Ying Wang
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  2. Qinghong Zhong
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  3. Xuesong Qiu
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  4. Wenjing Li
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Correspondence to Ying Wang.

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Wang, Y., Zhong, Q., Qiu, X. et al. Resource Allocation for Reliable Communication Between Controllers and Switches in SDN. J Netw Syst Manage 26, 966–992 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10922-018-9450-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10922-018-9450-7

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