Dynamic switch migration towards a scalable SDN control plane. (24th February 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cheng, Guozhen; Chen, Hongchang; Hu, Hongchao; Lan, Julong
• Is Part Of: International journal of communication systems. Volume 29:Number 9(2016)
• Page Start: 1482
• Page End: 1499
• Publication Date: 2016-02-24
• Subjects: software‐defined networking -- elastic control -- switch migration -- game theory -- scalability; Telecommunication systems -- Periodicals; 621.382
• DOI: 10.1002/dac.3101
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1074-5351

Abstract

Summary: Distributed control plane is a promising approach to scalable software‐defined networking (SDN). Live migration of switches from controllers that are overloaded to those that are underutilized may be a solution to handle peak switch traffic using available control resource. However, such migration has to be performed with a well‐designed mechanism to fully utilize available resources in all three resource dimensions: CPU, bandwidth, and memory. In this article, we first provide a resource model for SDN and reduce the switch migration decision to a centralized resource utilization maximization problem under constraints of CPU, bandwidth, and memory. Second, we show that the problem of maximizing resource utilization in an SDN is equivalent to that of maximizing game players' profits in the context of non‐cooperative game theory. Taking controllers and switches as game players and commodities respectively, the player policy is how to migrate switches among the control plane. Finally, we implement a proof of concept, called GAME‐Switch Migration (GAME‐SM). The numerical experiments using Mininet emulator validate nice properties of our game model in enhancing the performance of control plane in SDN. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Abstract : We provide a resource model for software‐defined networking and reduce the switch migration decision to a centralized resource utilization maximization problem under constraints of CPU, bandwidth, and memory. We show that the problem of maximizing resource utilization in a software‐defined networking is equivalent to that of maximizing game players' profits in the context of non‐cooperative game theory. Taking controllers and switches as game players and commodities respectively, the player policy is how to migrate switches among the control plane. We implement a proof‐of‐concept, called GAME‐Switch Migration.