The advent of SDN has brought a plethora of new architectures and controller designs for many use-cases and scenarios. Existing SDN deployments focus on campus, datacenter and WAN networks. However, little research efforts have been devoted to the scenario of effectively controlling a full deployment of end-nodes (e.g. smartphones) that are transient and scattered across the Internet. In this paper, we present a rigorous analysis of the challenges associated with an SDN architecture for end-nodes, show that such challenges are not found in existing SDN scenarios, and provide practical design guidelines to address them. Then, and following these guidelines we present a reference architecture based on a decentralized, distributed and symmetric controller with a connectionless pull-oriented southbound and an intent-driven northbound. Finally, we measure a proof-of-concept deployment to assess the validity of the analysis as well as the architecture.
There have been other works that discussed the interactions of end-nodes and SDN. Nevertheless, and to the best of our knowledge, this paper is the first ever to carefully explore all implications of a full SDN deployment of end-nodes. For instance, the authors of @cite_14 enable SDN within a mobile device to aggregate all its available interfaces. However, and contrary to our work, they do not consider that end-nodes can be transient, scattered, with low traffic locality and very numerous. Similarly, the authors of @cite_7 extend OpenFlow to bring SDN to end-nodes and complement existing approaches in the field of Software-defined Radio. They -intentionally- kept out the scope the complete architecture to support SDN-aware end-nodes. Similarly, meSDN @cite_6 proposes a mobile extension for SDN to optimize wireless channel transmission on an existing SDN network. However, it does not consider devices connecting to legacy -non SDN- networks or transient devices that roam frequently.
@cite_14 @cite_6 @cite_7
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The connectivity capabilities of mobile wireless devices have been forever changing how networks operate, increasingly demanding resources from the network. This places a need for novel mobile network architectures and mechanisms, targeting tomorrows challenges, as envisaged by 5G networks research efforts. This paper sheds a light on an important 5G aspect, namely the interaction of the mobile node with the network for the optimization of mobility processes, defining a concept framework where Software Defined Networking (SDN) reaches the end device. In this way, SDN protocols such as OpenFlow are extended with mobility management capabilities, where the mobile terminal can provide details about perceived connectivity targets and conditions, and the controller is able to enforce necessary changes to data flows all the way to the terminal node. This framework was experimentally evaluated in a physical wireless testbed, with results showcasing its feasibility in a mobile offloading scenario. The Internet-of-Things (IoT) envisions a world where billions of everyday objects and mobile devices communicate using a large number of interconnected wired and wireless networks. Maximizing the utilization of this paradigm requires fine-grained QoS support for differentiated application requirements, context-aware semantic information retrieval, and quick and easy deployment of resources, among many other objectives. These objectives can only be achieved if components of the IoT can be dynamically managed end-to-end across heterogeneous objects, transmission technologies, and networking architectures. Software-defined Networking (SDN) is a new paradigm that provides powerful tools for addressing some of these challenges. Using a software-based control plane, SDNs introduce significant flexibility for resource management and adaptation of network functions. In this article, we study some promising solutions for the IoT based on SDN architectures. Particularly, we analyze the application of SDN in managing resources of different types of networks such as Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and mobile networks, the utilization of SDN for information-centric networking, and how SDN can leverage Sensing-as-a-Service (SaaS) as a key cloud application in the IoT. Software defined networking (SDN) and OpenFlow as the outcome of recent research and development efforts provided unprecedented access into the forwarding plane of networking elements. This is achieved by decoupling the network control out of the forwarding devices. This separation paves the way for a more flexible and innovative networking. While SDN concept and OpenFlow find their ways into commercial deployments, performance evaluation of the SDN concept and its scalability, delay bounds, buffer sizing and similar performance metrics are not investigated in recent researches. In spite of usage of benchmark tools (like OFlops and Cbench), simulation studies and very few analytical models, there is a lack of analytical models to express the boundary condition of SDN deployment. In this work we present a model based on network calculus theory to describe the functionality of an SDN switch and controller. To the best of our knowledge, this is for the first time that network calculus framework is utilized to model the behavior of an SDN switch in terms of delay and queue length boundaries and the analysis of the buffer length of SDN controller and SDN switch. The presented model can be used for network designers and architects to get a quick view of the overall SDN network deployment performance and buffer sizing of SDN switches and controllers.