Performance Evaluation of Software-Defined Networking Implemented on Various Network Topologies

Abstract

This work demonstrates performance results of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) testing that were carried out on typical network topologies by using simulation. Specifically, the performance metrics that were examined included: the topology setup and tear down time, the CPU and RAM usage of the system and the latency of packet transfer between nodes. The entire investigation was conducted on a Windows PC using a Virtual Machine for running a Mininet emulator. From the meticulous analysis of the results, it is worth mentioning the following: (i) the total number of switches in a SDN architecture has a significant influence on CPU load. (ii) The RAM (Random Access Memory) consumption dependents on the number of hosts and in circumstances of excessive load it shows much higher increase compared to the usage of the CPU. (iii) The overall performance depends significantly on the type of topology and its properties.