A Dynamic Recovery Module for In-band Control Channel Failure In Software Defined Networking

Abstract

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a recently proposed networking pattern that facilitates a centralized system of computer networks where a controller maintains the management of a global view of the network. One of the characteristics of SDNs is that by decoupling the control and data plane from each other, the controllability and manageability of a network is improved. In this arrangement, the connections between the controller (control plane) and the switches (data plane) are established by either an in-band or an out-of-band control mechanism. Despite all the advantages of SDNs, new challenges arise regarding the connection availability between the data and control planes. A disconnection between the two planes could result in performance degradation. To achieve reliable control traffic between data and control planes, in this work, we design and implement an in-band control protection approach that finds a set of ideal paths for control channel, where as much control traffic as possible can be protected by the proposed protection mechanism. This design enables switches to locally react to failures without involving the controller. Through simulation experiments, we show that our proposed approach significantly improves the control reliability of an in-band control network.