BlockFlow: A Decentralized SDN Controller Using Block-chain

Abstract

With the rise of cloud computing, data centers, and big data, the current rigid network architecture has been found to be inadequate. The modern technological demands require a flexible and easily reconfigurable network architecture. Software Defined Networking is a revolutionary concept that separates the control plane of network devices from their data plane and centralizes the control plane of all devices, facilitating the controlling of the entire network through a single portal. This helps us create flexible network architectures that can be reconfigured quickly to fit different needs. However, centralizing control leads to a Single Point of Failure and makes the network vulnerable to Denial of Service attacks, which is one of the major reasons why industries are reluctant to adopt this technology. Block-chain provides us a with a distributed ledger and a decentralized state, allowing us to create decentralized applications that run over multiple computers. This research aims to distribute the control plane of Software Defined Networks across multiple devices using block-chain. This addresses the existing security vulnerabilities of the Software Defined Network architecture such as Single Point of Failure while continuing to keep the control plane logically centralized, thereby allowing the network to be configured through a single portal. The resulting architecture has a physically distributed control plane whose logic is centralized.