A Congestion Contribution-based Traffic Engineering Scheme using Software-Defined Networking

Network Virtualization (NV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) bring new business opportunities for network providers allowing them to offer the network as a service over their network infrastructure. One challenge for network providers is to provision virtual SDN services for multiple tenants while satisfying QoS and traffic engineering (TE) objectives of the higher priced SDN services, allocating the network resources cost effectively and managing the virtual services that span over customer premises, wide area and cloud domains. In this paper, we describe an algorithmic framework that includes QoS management and traffic-engineering methods for managing virtual services over large SDN networks. The algorithmic framework is part of an intelligent service management architecture which employs optimization algorithms, machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques into the management of virtual services over SDN networks.

Accurate traffic and latency measurements are the foundation of many network management tasks, including traffic engineering and network provision, network diagnosis and fault recovery. However, SNMP-based traffic measurement techniques in traditional IP networks only provide measurements for link loads, which cannot lead to accurate measurements. For link latency measurement, it has been shown that a traditional IP network needs to deploy a large number of monitors to achieve accurate measurements. The software-defined network (SDN) architecture opens up new opportunities to tackle the traffic matrix estimation and latency measurement problems. For the traffic estimation problem, the counter in a flow table entry of an SDN switch can directly measure the size of a matched flow. This dramatically increases the number and type of flows that can be measured accurately. For link latency measurement, SDN switches provide flexible routing and hence allow even non-shortest paths to be measured in the network. This routing flexibility can reduce the number of monitors deployed in the network to achieve a complete measurement of all the link latencies. But the additional measurement capabilities of SDNs also have limitations: the flow table entries added for measurements must be limited due to the high cost of ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM), and the amount of additional traffic for measurement should also be confined. Under these constraints, this research investigates the traffic matrix estimation and link latency measurement problems for a pure SDN network and a hybrid SDN network. A hybrid network, which consists of SDN switches and conventional routers, will exist for some time to come since it is economically impossible to replace every conventional router overnight. For the traffic matrix estimation problem, we propose a new estimation framework, which can be used in both SDNs and hybrid SDNs. Performance evaluation results show that the new framework can achieve highly accurate traffic measurement with a small number of TCAM entries. For the link latency measurement problem, we first present minimum monitor placement schemes in hybrid SDNs. It has been shown that our schemes not only reduce the number of required monitors but also guarantee full link measurements even when link weights change. We then present two time-stamp-based link latency measurement schemes for pure SDNs and show that the proposed schemes can minimize the number of consumed TCAM entries and the amount of traffic generated for measurement.

We propose an online traffic engineering (TE) scheme for efficient routing of bandwidth guaranteed connections on a Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS)/wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) network with a traffic pattern varying with the time of day. We first consider the problem of designing the WDM virtual topology utilizing multihour statistical traffic pattern. After presenting an effective solution to this offline problem, we introduce a Dynamic tRaffic Engineering AlgorithM (DREAM) that makes use of the bandwidth update and rerouting of the label switched paths (LSPs). The performance of DREAM is compared with commonly used online TE schemes and it is shown to be superior in terms of blocked traffic ratio.

Efficient measurement of round-trip link delays in software-defined networks

The 5G technology brings new services such as the faster speeds of enhanced mobile broadband, mass deployment of machine-type communications, and ultra-reliable low-latency services. Consequently, it comes to a critical need to design a network infrastructure that can easily and efficiently support various service. Service Level Agreement (SLA) based services were traditionally established in the Internet Protocol / Multiprotocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) network by implementing traffic engineering using protocols such as Resource Reservation Protocol - Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE). However, it is not easy for some network operators to implement the current 5G development as mentioned earlier. Segment Routing (SR) presents as a technology to minimize network complexity and provide a fundamental for supporting SLA services, flexibility, reliability, and overall performance in the core of a network. In this study, we simulate and implement SR into MPLS Layer 3 Virtual Private Network (L3VPN) intra-AS domain to show that (i) reducing any transport protocol will not affect the service performance; instead, it simplifies service provisioning and problem handling (ii) when a network failure happens in the network, using Topology Independent Loop-Free Alternate (TI-LFA) and microloops avoidance can provide better failover time than conventional Fast Re-Route (FRR) (iii) SLA path differentiation for services within the same Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) can be applied using Segment Routing - Traffic Engineering (SR-TE). It will be an essential foundation for network slicing in the future.

Hybrid software-defined networking (SDN) networks are intermediates between traditional networks and SDN networks. However, since the hybrid control planes are structurally different from the single control plane, updating the hybrid SDN networks lacks effective techniques. In this paper, by utilizing the segment routing (SR) mechanism to update hybrid SDN networks and formalize the application of SR during updates, we propose a cooperative consistency update algorithm that can coordinate SR, two-phase commit techniques. The algorithm is capable of preserving consistency with low overhead and excellent applicability. When a network requires updating, the algorithm leverages the SR mechanism to stitch a new path using the available path segments; thus, flows can use the new path immediately. If the update cannot be completed with the SR mechanism alone, the algorithm can utilize the two-phase commit technique to update the nodes through duplication. Notably, our experiments based on real topologies indicate that, compared to prior techniques, the proposed algorithm can greatly reduce the TCAM overhead.

In this paper, we consider IP fast recovery from single-link failures in a given network topology. The basic idea is to replace some existing routers with a designated switch. When a link fails, the affected router will send all the affected traffic to the designated switch (through pre-configured IP tunnels), which will deliver the affected traffic to its destination without using the failed link. The goal of the approach is to achieve faster failure recovery than traditional routing protocols that employ reactive computing upon link failures. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) switches can serve as the designated switches because they can flexibly redirect affected traffic to other routes, instead of only to the shortest paths in the network. However, SDN switches are very expensive. Our objective is to minimize the number of SDN switches needed and to guarantee that the network can still recover from any single-link failure. For networks with uniform link costs, we show that using normal non-SDN switches with IP tunneling capability as designated switches can guarantee recovery from any single-link failure. For networks with general link costs, we find that not all single-link failures can be recovered by using non-SDN switches as designated switches; by using SDN switches only when necessary, we can reduce the total number of SDN switches needed compared to an existing work. We conduct extensive simulations to verify our proposed approaches.

The combined use of the differentiated services (DiffServ) and multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) technologies is envisioned to provide guaranteed quality of service (QoS) for multimedia traffic in IP networks. One of the most attractive applications of MPLS is traffic engineering (TE), However, MPLS by itself cannot provide service differentiation, which brings up the need to complement it with another technology capable of providing such a feature: DiffServ. By mapping the traffic from different DiffServ classes of service on separate LSPs(light switched paths) networks can meet engineering constraints specific to the given class on both shortest and non-shortest path. This TE strategy is called DiffServ-aware TE (DS-TE). The experimental results caculated in this paper plot the efficiency of GMPLS/Lightwave Agile Switching Simulator (GLASS) as a network manager in different and unpredictable traffic conditions at the expense of a limited increase in the computational complexity and cost.

Computer network conditions that are dynamic and also complex make network operators often make mistakes in the configuration of a network device. However, these mistakes can be resolved by the emergence of a centralized programming approach which is now known as Software Defined Network (SDN). In addition, with the development of information technology, several services in computer networks also grabbed a lot of attention from the world, such as video streaming services. A video streaming service that is so massive is capable of having an impact on data traffic on computer networks. In SDN networks, controllers are a core component of this architecture. Currently, many different types of SDN controllers can be used, however, choosing a controller in an SDN network must be an important concern. This is related to the performance of the SDN controller which is a requirement for SDN network development. This research will analyze the performance of the video streaming service using the Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) streaming protocol in testing two SDN controllers, namely Pox and Opendaylight. Based on the tests that have been carried out, it produces Quality of Service (QoS) values in the form of throughput, delay, and jitter. The Pox controller excels in the value of QoS delay and throughput. As for the jitter value, both Pox and Opendaylight controllers have good indexes.

The evolution and advancements in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have enabled large scale distributed computing with a huge chunk of applications for massive number of users. This has obviously generated large volumes of data, thus severely burdening the processing capacity of computers as well as the inflexible traditional networks. State-of-the-art methods for addressing datacenter level performance fixes are yet found wanting for sufficiently addressing this huge processing, storage, and network movement with proprietary protocols for this voluminous data. In this chapter the works have focused on addressing the backend server performance through effective reducer placement, intelligent compression policy, handling slower tasks and in-network performance boosting techniques through effective traffic engineering, traffic classification, topology discovery, energy minimization and load balancing in datacenter-oriented applications. Hadoop, the defacto standard in distributed big data storage and processing, has been designed to store data with its Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and processing engine MapReduce large datasets reliably. However, the processing performance of Hadoop is critically dependent on the time taken to transfer data during the shuffle generated during MapReduce. Also, during concurrent execution of tasks, slower tasks need to be properly identified and efficiently handled to improve the completion time of jobs. To overcome these limitations, three contributions have been made; (i) Compression of generated map outputs at a suitable time when all the map tasks are yet to be completed to shift the load of network onto the CPU; (ii) Placing the reducer onto the nodes where the computation done is highest based on a couple of counters, one maintained at the rack level and another at node level, to minimize the run-time data copying; and (iii) Placing the slower map tasks onto the nodes where the computation done is highest and network is handled by prioritizing. Software defined networking (SDN) has been a boon for next generation networking owing to the separation of control plane from the data plane. It has the capability to address the network requirements in a timely manner by setting flows for every to and fro data movement and gathering large network statistics at the controller to make informed decisions about the network. A core issue in the network for the controller is traffic classification, which can substantially assist SDN controllers towards efficient routing and traffic engineering decisions. This chapter presents a traffic classification scheme utilizing three classifiers namely Feed-forward Neural Network (FFNN), Logistic Regression (LR), Naïve Bayes and employing Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) for improved traffic classification with less overhead and without overlooking the key Quality of Service (QoS) criterion. Also lowering energy minimization and link utilization has been an important criterion for lowering the operating cost of the network and effectively utilizing the network. This issue has been addressed in the chapter by formulating a multi-objective problem while simultaneously addressing the QoS constraints by proposing a metaheuristic, since no polynomial solution exists and hence an evolutionary based metaheuristic (Clonal Selection) based energy optimization scheme, namely, Clonal Selection Based Energy Minimization (CSEM) has been devised. The obtained results show the efficacy of the proposed traffic classification scheme and CSEM based solution as compared with the state-of-the-art techniques. SDN has been a promising newer network paradigm but security issues and expensive capital procurement of SDN limit its full deployment hence moving to a hybrid SDN (h-SDN) deployment is only logical moving forward. The usage of both centralized and decentralized paradigms in h-SDN with intrinsic issues of interoperability poses challenges to key issues of topology gathering by the controller for proper allocation of network resources and traffic engineering for optimum network performance. State-of-the-art protocols for topology gathering, such as Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP) and Broadcast Domain Discovery Protocol (BDDP) require a huge number of messages and such schemes only gather link information of SDN devices leaving out legacy switches’ (LS) links which results in sub-optimal performance. This chapter provides novel schemes which unearth topology discovery by requiring fewer messages and gathering link information of all the devices in both single and multi-controller environments (might be used when scalability issue is prevalent in h-SDN). Traffic engineering problems in h-SDN are addressed by proper placement of SDN nodes in h-SDN by utilizing the analyzing key criterion of traffic details and the degree of a node while lowering the link utilization in real-time topologies. The results of the proposed schemes for topology discovery and SDN node placement demonstrate the merits as compared with the state-of-the-art protocols.

It is Software defined networking (SDN) is a new network approach which allows separation of the forwarding plane from the control plane in network architecture, that aids in the efficient control of data flow and gives network administrators a software- based method for managing and configuring the networks. In contrast to SDN, which provides a centralized controller, traditional network topologies require the individual configuration of each network device. Due to a centralized control functionality, SDN is increasingly used by businesses, telecom service providers, cloud providers, and many other users, as it encourages flexibility and scalability in the network while also assisting in streamlining operations. There is significant demand of SDN for effective and adaptable networks. SDN adoption has also been rising in the campuses and corporate sectors. This paper provides a concise overview of the Software Defined Networks (SDN) topic, which is essential for comprehending the fundamental principles of SDN in order to conduct research and implement SDN in many sectors. The initial focus is on the discussion of traditional networks, including their limitations, as well as the many issues encountered by industries. The topic of Software Defined Networks is explored, encompassing their necessity, historical background, architectural structure, interfaces, and models. Next, the many applications of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are examined. Additionally, the various SDN case studies, vendors, setup issues with SDN, and current research fields were elucidated. The discussion focuses on the role of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) in Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically addressing the issues associated with implementing SDN in AI.

Conserving energy consumption in the Internet has attracted much attention in recent years. During the non-peak time in daily network operations, it is possible to put a subset of routers to sleep mode for energy conservation purposes without network performance deterioration. This paper proposes a practical green traffic engineering scheme called Greedy Green MPLS Traffic Engineering Scheme (GGMTES) to save energy in multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) networks. During the non-peak time, GGMTES arranges some routers into sleep mode to save energy and re-routes all traffic for load balancing with minimum re-configuration overhead. Our simulation results show that GGMTS can save up to 15% more energy than an existing approach without network performance deterioration.

Popularity of Software Defined Network (SDN) technology is spreading rapidly and corporate networks are deploying to take advantages of its features. Control & Data planes are segregated in SDN and simple forwarding devices enabled with OpenFlow protocol is used to forward data planes. The responsibility of control planes are taken by controller into SDN network. The data packets are generated by source host and forwarded to destination host by seeing destination address of such packet without validating source host address. Flow of data packets is controlled by controller setting up required flow entries into flow table of forwarding devices. Initially forwarding devices do not have any security & control and they are not able to forward traffic generated by attached hosts. Data packets of attached hosts are sent to the controller by forwarding devices for generation of control packets and setup necessary flow entries into device flow table. Source IP spoofed attacks may be setup by attacker in this situation and perform different type of attacks. There are some techniques for prevention and mitigation from such attacks. In this study, we offer an analysis of available source address validation techniques for SDN environment. The study discussed various features, limitations and gaps of source address validation solutions and provided various areas in SDN Security for future research.

In Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), resource optimization is one of the challenging issues. It improves the network performance. This can be achieved with the help of a new networking technology, called Software Defined Networking (SDN). The concept of SDN is to decouple the control plane from the forwarding plane of a network to improve the performance of the networking applications. Traffic Engineering (TE) is a domain of network applications that manages the network traffic, and try to optimize the network resources. SDN offers multiple features to support TE applications. SDN combined with WSN forms a new networking domain called Software Defined WSN (SDWSN). Since WSN has resource-constrained nodes, resource optimization is a need in WSN. This paper proposes an optimized link utilization based approach for TE in SDWSN. The proposed approach discusses about a traffic optimization algorithm, called Optimized Link Allocation based TE (OLA-TE). OLA-TE is implemented at the controller node and helps to improve the overall network utilization. The SDN sensor nodes find the optimized path for traffic routing with the help of controller node. The proposed approach is compared with the traditional WSN approach. IBM CPLEX Optimization Studio and MATLAB are used for validation purposes. The CPLEX results assure a network flow-cost optimization of about 10%. The results of MATLAB show that despite having extra control traffic on network, the network performance gets improved over the period of time.

In a software-defined network (SDN), statistics information is of vital importance for different applications, such as traffic engineering, flow rerouting, and attack detection. Since some resources, e.g., ternary content addressable memory, SRAM, and computing capacity, are often limited in SDN switches, traffic measurements based on flow tables or sampling become infeasible. Sketch, a hash-based data structure, monitors every packet with fixed-size memory to provide a feasible approach of traffic measurement, but there exists a tradeoff between accuracy and memory. Currently, many efficient sketch algorithms have been designed to different purposes, but they focus on the performance and applications of one single sketch. In this paper, we present a scheme to reduce redundant flow statistics collected by sketches of different SDN switches. The proposed scheme could reduce measurement overhead in sketches, obtain more accurate estimate flow size, and find the elephant flow precisely.