An Improved Switch Migration Method-Based Efficient Load Balancing for Multiple Controllers in Software-Defined Networks

The present work proposed an improved switch migration method (ISMM) for balancing the controller load to migrate the switch from overloaded to under-loaded controller. This method is used on each controller during controller load balance in order to decide the state of controllers. The implementation was conducted using the Mininet simulation tool. The performance of the proposed solution has been evaluated by using throughput, response time, and packet loss metrics. Accordingly, the simulation results indicated that this method has improved throughput by 7.6% over SSMS and 1.8% over CAMD, improved response time 8.3% over SSMS and 4% over CAMD, and improved the packet loss 8% over SSMS and 1.3% over CAMD during the incoming traffic load between 501p/s and 5000p/s. Thus, the performance of ISMM has shown efficient results over SSMS and CAMD among all assessed metrics by balancing the load between controllers.