Enhancing Responsiveness and Scalability for OpenFlow Networks Via Control-Message Quenching

Abstract

OpenFlow has been envisioned as a promising approach to next-generation programmable and easy-to-manage networks. However, the inherent heavy switchcontroller communications in OpenFlow may throttle controller responsiveness and, ultimately, network scalability. In this paper, we identify that a key cause of this problem lies in flow setup, and propose a Control-Message Quenching (CMQ) scheme to address it. CMQ requires minimal changes to OpenFlow, imposes no overhead on the central controller which is often the performance bottleneck, is lightweight and simple to implement. We show, via worst-case analysis and numerical results, an upper bound of performance improvement that CMQ can achieve, and evaluate the average performance via experiments using a widely-adopted prototyping system. Our experimental results demonstrate considerable enhancement of controller responsiveness and network scalability by using CMQ, with reduced flow setup latency and elevated network throughput.

Meeting Name

2012 International Conference on ICT Convergence: "Global Open Innovation Summit for Smart ICT Convergence" ICTC 2012 (2012: Oct. 15-17, Jeju Island, South Korea)

Department(s)

Computer Science

Keywords and Phrases

Network scalability; Network throughput; Numerical results; Performance bottlenecks; Performance improvements; Throttle controller; Upper Bound; Worst-case analysis, Controllers; Innovation; Quenching; Scalability, Next generation networks

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

978-146734828-7

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

2162-1233

Document Type

Article - Conference proceedings

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2012 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Oct 2012

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