Optimizing openflow load-balancing with L2 direct server return

Abstract

Load-balancers have an essential role in enterprise data-centers, as their existence and performance is decisive for service provision and availability. The state of the art is that today's load-balancers are a piece of specialized embedded hardware with a proprietary operating system and application modules. In this paper we propose a concept to break up this black box model and to show how to develop a high performance LB with OpenFlow technology. In this approach we use OpenFlow network components to process the load-balancing and in order to reduce the maintenance effort and to lower the hardware cost factor. Furthermore, in case of fail-over it is redundant by concept and easier to replace by another device. The experimental evaluation of this concept proves that the concept is developed beyond a theoretical concept and the implemented solution is ready for deployment.