BFD-based link latency measurement in software defined networking

Abstract

5G networks offer various network services based on software defined networking and network function virtualization. However, certain services are sensitive to link latency which is why it is consistently observed to provide high quality services. Previous studies have proposed two approaches to this task: measuring the latency by probe packets and link-layer discovery protocol (LLDP) packets. However, they have several limitations like flow rule preconfiguration, influence of the control plane traffic, and necessity of calibration. In this paper, Bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD) based approach is proposed. The approach measures latency at the data plane with simply implemented echo mode in Open vSwitch. We evaluates and compare the proposed approach to LLDP-based one in terms of single link latency and path latency, and error rate. In addition, we verify that the control plane throughput affects link latency according to the increased number of switches. As a result, the proposed approach can resolve the limitations and provides accuracy link latency.