The past century of telecommunications has shown that failures in networks are prevalent. Although much has been done to prevent failures, network nodes and links are bound to fail eventually. Failure recovery processes are therefore needed. Failure recovery is mainly influenced by (1) detection of the failure, and (2) circumvention of the detected failure. However, especially in SDNs where controllers recompute network state reactively, this leads to high delays. Hence, next to primary rules, backup rules should be installed in the switches to quickly detour traffic once a failure occurs. In this work, we propose algorithms for computing an all-to-all primary and backup network forwarding configuration that is capable of circumventing link and node failures. Omitting the high delay invoked by controller recomputation through preconfiguration, our proposal's recovery delay is close to the detection time which is significantly below the 50 ms rule of thumb. After initial recovery, we recompute network configuration to guarantee protection from future failures. Our algorithms use packet-labeling to guarantee correct and shortest detour forwarding. The algorithms and labeling technique allow packets to return to the primary path and are able to discriminate between link and node failures. The computational complexity of our solution is comparable to that of all-to-all-shortest paths computations. Our experimental evaluation on both real and generated networks shows that network configuration complexity highly decreases compared to classic disjoint paths computations. Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept OpenFlow controller in which our proposed configuration is implemented, demonstrating that it readily can be applied in production networks.
@cite_31 apply the concept of Loop-Free Alternates (LFA) from IP networks to SDNs, where nodes are preprogrammed with single-link backup rules when not creating loops. Through applying an alternative loop-detection method more backup paths are found than using traditional LFA, although full protection requires topological adaptations.
@cite_31
2332445018 1561042325 2123610191 2023696105
Loop-Free Alternates (LFAs) are a local fast-reroute mechanism defined for IP networks. They are simple but suffer from two drawbacks. Firstly, some flows cannot be protected due to missing LFAs, i.e., this concept does not provide full protection coverage, which depends on network topology. Secondly, some LFAs cause loops in case of node or multiple failures. Avoiding those LFAs decreases the protection coverage even further. In this work, we propose to apply LFAs to OpenFlow-based networks. We suggest a method for loop detection so that loops can be avoided without decreasing protection coverage. We propose an implementation with OpenFlow that requires only a single additional flow rule per switch. We further investigate the percentage of flows that can be protected, not protected, or even create loops in different types of failure scenarios. We consider realistic ring and mesh networks as well as typical topologies for data center networks. None of them can be fully protected with LFAs. Therefore, we suggest an augmented fat-tree topology which allows LFAs to protect against all single link and node failures and against most double failures. A reliable and scalable mechanism to provide protection against a link or node failure has additional requirements in the context of SDN and OpenFlow. Not only it has to minimize the load on the controller, but it must be able to react even when the controller is unreachable. In this paper we present a protection scheme based on precomputed backup paths and inspired by MPLS “crankback” routing, that guarantees instantaneous recovery times and aims at zero packet-loss after failure detection, regardless of controller reachability, even when OpenFlow's “fast-failover” feature cannot be used. The proposed mechanism is based on OpenState, an OpenFlow extension that allows a programmer to specify how forwarding rules should autonomously adapt in a stateful fashion, reducing the need to rely on remote controllers. We present the scheme as well as two different formulations for the computation of backup paths. In [1], the author introduced a strategy to use network coding on p-Cycles in order to provide 1+N protection for straddling connections and links against single link failures in mesh optical networks. In this paper we extend the work in [1] and introduce a GMPLS-based implementation of this strategy for link protection, that is also used to protect on-cycle links. We refer to this scheme as hybrid 1+N protection, since some data units are transmitted without being combined with other data units. The strategy uses a combination of GMPLS standard label switched paths (LSP) for protecting on-cycle links, and modified LSPs, which we refer to as label switched cycles (LSC), for protecting straddling links. The strategy does not have to explicitly detect failures, but rather detects the absence of data units. Destinations receive backup copies of packets within no more than the p-Cycle propagation delay for on-cycle link failures, and no more than the sum of the propagation delays of the p-Cycle and the longest straddling link for straddling link failures. The implementation details of this strategy are presented, and the cost of implementation, in terms of link usage is evaluated and is shown to be modest. This scheme can therefore provide protection at higher layers, at a speed that is comparable to that achieved at the physical layer, but at a much reduced cost, while being flexible, and requiring less involvement from the management and control planes. This document defines RSVP-TE extensions to establish backup label- switched path (LSP) tunnels for local repair of LSP tunnels. These mechanisms enable the re-direction of traffic onto backup LSP tunnels in 10s of milliseconds, in the event of a failure. Two methods are defined here. The one-to-one backup method creates detour LSPs for each protected LSP at each potential point of local repair. The facility backup method creates a bypass tunnel to protect a potential failure point; by taking advantage of MPLS label stacking, this bypass tunnel can protect a set of LSPs that have similar backup constraints. Both methods can be used to protect links and nodes during network failure. The described behavior and extensions to RSVP allow nodes to implement either method or both and to interoperate in a mixed network. [STANDARDS-TRACK]