Integration of SDN with Cloud Computing

Integration of SDN with Cloud Computing

The use of the SDN (Software Defined Network) paradigm is based in a very simple principle: the split between control plane and data plane. For that, the network forwarding function is totally independent from the network control function. The first function is located in each switch or network device and the other one is located in an especial device called controller. This one communicates, using the OpenFlow protocol over a secure channel, the forwarding tables to each network device. So, SDN technologies enables us to adapt network routes to the network, or user, requeriments; monitor the state of links; provide QoS; set up firewalls, virtual networks, etc.; all of them easy and automatically and without human interaction.

The above characteristics make of SDN a technology to be used in cloud computing, because can resolve indeed a lot of problems present in data centers now. Some of these problems are: provide to each tenant of data center its own virtual network, isolated from the other tenant network; reconfigurate the route between two virtual machine after a network faliure, or machine migrations; reserve bandwith for migrations and QoS, etc.

Description of the architecture SDN
Description of SDN architecture
Topics:
  • Allocate network resources dynamicaly for VM in a cloud using SDN techniques:
    • Continue monitoring of flows in order to know the usage of links and networks resources
    • Network configuration in real-time, depending on the requirements of VMs every moment.
      • VM allocation: set up optimized routes, firewall, QoS support, etc, for new VMs.
      • VM migration: grant bandwith for quick migrations, change routes between migrated VM without traffic disruption.
  • Improve network performance:
    • Reduce power consumption: set up routes between VMs, that support their network requirements using the minimum amount of network devices.
    • QoS support: set up routes with minimum jitter, minimum delay, load balancing, etc.

Relevant Publications:

  • Pilar Manzanares-Lopez, Juan Pedro Muñoz-Gea, Francisco Manuel Delicado Martínez, Josemaria Malgosa-Sanahuja, Adrian Flores de la Cruz.
    Host Discovery Solution: An Enhancement of Topology Discovery in OpenFlow based SDN Networks.
    Proceedings of the 13 International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications (ICETE 2016) – Volume 1: DCNET-2016, pp.: 80-88. Lisbon, Portugal. July 26-28, 2016.

Relevant Projects:

People:

Francisco M. Delicado Francisco M. Delicado, PhD
Associate Professor
Phone number: +34 967 592 00 – Ext. 2601
Email: francisco.delicado@uclm.esiD icondblp.icon.18x18