Software Defined Networks
SDN Architecture
SDN is the separation of the control functions from the forwarding functions, which
enables greater automation and programmability in the network.
It is often paired with network function virtualization (NFV), which separates network
functions from hardware in the form of virtualized network functions (VNFs).
SDN enables cloud-like computing within a network.
This enables network engineers and administrators to respond quickly to changes in
business requirements through a centralized control console that is abstracted from the
physical hardware of the network.
In other words, SDN creates a centralized brain for the network that can communicate
and command the rest of the network. SDN is used to create virtual overlay networks;
software-defined networks that sit on top of the physical hardware infrastructure.
Contd… Layers
The three layers in an SDN architecture are:
1. Application: the applications and services running on the network
2. Control: the SDN controller or “brains” of the network
3. Infrastructure: switches and routers, and the supporting physical hardware
To communicate between these layers, SDN uses northbound and southbound
application program interfaces (APIs) where the northbound API communicates
between the application and the control layers and the southbound API
communicates between the infrastructure and control layers.
Contd… Northbound APIs
Applications using an SDN rely on the controller to tell them what the status of the network
infrastructure is so that they can know what resources are available.
Additionally, the SDN controller can automatically ensure application traffic is routed
according to policies established by network administrators.
The applications talk to the control layer via the northbound APIs and tell the layer what
resources the applications need, and their destination.
The control layer orchestrates how the applications are given the resources available in the
network.
It also uses its intelligence to find the optimal path for the application in the context of its
latency and security needs. Orchestration is automated and not manually configured.
Contd… Southbound APIs
The SDN controller communicates with the network infrastructure, such as
routers and switches, through southbound APIs.
The network infrastructure is told what path the application data must take as
decided by the controller.
In real time, the controller can change how the routers and switches are moving
data.
The data no longer relies on the devices and routing tables to determine where
the data goes.
Instead, the controller’s intelligence makes informed decisions that optimize the
data’s path.
Contd… SDN Controller
An SDN controller is the software that provides a centralized view of and control over the
entire network.
Network administrators use the controller to govern how the underlying infrastructure’s
forwarding plane should handle the traffic.
Network administrators establish policies (rules) that are applied to traffic and are uniformly
applied to multiple nodes in the network.
Having a centralized view of the network and the policies in place makes for simpler
management of the network that is more uniform and consistent.
The application, control, and infrastructure layers are kept separate in SDN and
communicate through APIs.
SDN 3
Layers
SDN Benefits
Direct programmability: SDN network policy is directly programmable because the control functions
are decoupled from forwarding functions, which enables the network to be programmatically
configured by proprietary or open source automation tools, including OpenStack, Puppet, Salt, Ansible,
and Chef.
Centralized management: Network intelligence is logically centralized in SDN controller software
that maintains a global view of the network.
Reduced capex: SDN potentially limits the need to purchase purpose-built, ASIC-based networking
hardware, and instead supports pay-as-you-grow models with its scaling capabilities.
Reduced opex: The ability to automate the updates to the network’s software means there is no need to
rip and replace the whole infrastructure when business needs or network demand necessitate a change.
Agility and flexibility: SDN can help organizations rapidly deploy new applications, services, and
infrastructure to quickly meet changing business goals and objectives because whenever something
new is created, a simple update deploys it network-wide.
SDN Challenges
Security risks of centralized management: While this makes networking easier,
it is also a security risk. Centralized management is a single point of attack and if
it goes down, the whole network is affected.
SDN controller bottleneck: When there is only a single instance of an SDN
controller, it can become a bottleneck for a network with a large amount of traffic,
routers, and switches. There is simply too much to communicate with for one
instance of a controller.
No universally-accepted standard for northbound APIs: Without a universally-
accepted standard for northbound APIs, vendors and open source organizations are
making dissimilar APIs for their SDN controllers. This makes application
development difficult because, in order to interoperate with different controllers,
the developers have to make multiple versions of applications.
Functional
Architecture
of SDN
Infrastructure Layer – Switching Devices
Switching devices simply act as packet forwarding hardware.
As in a data plane, these switching devices communicate with the controller to receive the
packet forwarding rules.
On the arrival of the packet, these switching device first matches to identify the forwarding
rule of the packet and then forward the packet accordingly to next hop.
Compared to the legacy networks the packet forwarding rules based on IP or media access
control (MAC) addresses, whereas in SDN packet forwarding can also depend on other
parameters, like transmission control protocol (TCP) or user data protocol (UDP) port,
virtual local area network (VLAN) tag, and ingress switch port
Infrastructure Layer – Optical Switching
Even today most of the networking equipment that are used in network are still working
on the principle of electronic signals.
That mean initially optical signals are converted into electrical ones and thereafter these
signals are regenerated, amplified or switched, and then again converted back to optical
ones.
This phenomenon is usually referred as an ‘optical-to-electrical-to-optical’ (OEO)
conversion and with this a significant delay will be generated in the transmission.
Optical switches are used to replace the current electronic NEs with optical ones, so that,
the necessity of OEO conversions can be eliminated.
The benefits of avoiding the OEO conversion stages are significant, as optical switching
are inexpensive because there is no need for lots of expensive high-speed electronics
Infrastructure Layer Contd…
Virtual Switches:
purposely built for use in virtualized environments and are referred as Open vSwitch.
Open vSwitch is well-matched with almost Linux-based virtualization environments
besides QEMU, Xen, KVM, and XenServer
Wireless Access Point
It permits wireless devices to have a connection with wired network using Wi-Fi or
related standards.
To increase spectrum utilization in the wireless networks, many advanced
technologies have come into operation, which may include software-defined radio
(SDR) that permits the control of wireless transmission strategy through software.
Due to its similar nature, it can be easily integrated with SDN.
Controller Layer
Responsible for setting up and tearing down flows and paths in the network.
The controller obtains information about capacity and demand required by the
networking equipment through which the traffic flows.
Deals with network controlling and network monitoring.
The network controlling includes policies imposed by the application layer and
packet forwarding rules for the infrastructure layer.
The other is related to network monitoring, in the format of local and global
network status.
Logical architectural design of controller which comprise of four building blocks namely, a a high level language
for SDN applications to define their network operation policies, b a rule update process to install rules generated
from those policies, c a network status collection process to gather network infrastructure information, and d a
network status synchronization process to build a global network view using network status collected by each
individual controller
Application Layer
The high level application or management plane interacts with control layer to program
the whole network and enforce different policies.
SDN applications continuously abstract information about the global network status
via south and northbound using protocol like
ALTO, and eXtensible session protocol (XSP)/eXtensible messaging and presence
protocol (XMPP) and
manipulates the physical NEs using high level programming languages for writing
various functional applications, such as
energy-efficient networking, security monitoring, access control link, traffic
engineering, PCE etc.
References
1. Benzekki, K., El Fergougui, A., & Elbelrhiti Elalaoui, A. (2016). Software‐defined networking (SDN): a
survey. Security and communication networks, 9(18), 5803-5833.
2. Singh, S., & Jha, R. K. (2017). A survey on software defined networking: Architecture for next generation
network. Journal of Network and Systems Management, 25, 321-374.
