CHAPTER 3: SOFTWARE DEFINE NETWORKING (SDN)

ITNW 4109 Innovations in Network & Security

Objectives
After studying this chapter, you should be able to
 Brief evolving network requirements
 Compare traditional network with software define network.
 Present an overview of an SDN architecture, to include explaining the
significance of northbound and southbound APIs.
 Explain characteristics of SDN.
Evolving Network Requirements
 Modern networking trends place an increasing burden on system and
networking administrators.
 A number of trends are driving network providers and users to reevaluate
traditional approaches to network architecture
 Demand is increasing
 Supply is increasing
 Traffic patterns are more complex
Evolving Network Requirements
 Demand is increasing With the ever-increasing volume and variety of
network traffic, generated by such high demand sources as big data, cloud
computing, IoT and mobile traffic, it becomes increasingly difficult to
meet stringent QoS and QoE requirements.
 Supply is increasing: Gbps Ethernet, 4G, 5G provide greater capacity for
data transmition.
 Traffic patterns are more complex: To respond for demands such as
differing levels of QoS, high and fluctuating traffic volumes, and security
requirements, network traffic has grown more complex and difficult to
manage.
Traditional Network Architectures are Inadequate
 Closed/proprietary equipment  Only few companies can
 Software bundled with hardware innovate
 Vendor-specific interfaces  Equipment vendors write the
code
 Protocols development
 Long time to introduce new
 Slow protocol standardization
features
 Low flexibility  Few market leaders (cisco/dlink)
 Devices stay the same
 Limited functionality in a device
Traditional Network Architectures are Inadequate
 Traditional network architectures are inadequate to meet the demands of
the growing volume and variety of traffic.
 Networks need to be more adaptable and scalable.
 To provide adaptability and scalability, two key technologies that are
rapidly being deployed by a variety of network service and application
providers are
 Software Defined Networking (SDN) and
 Network Functions Virtualization (NFV).
What does SDN consist of?
 Software-defined networking (SDN) offers a centralized, programmable
network that consists of an SDN controller, southbound APIs, and
northbound APIs.

 SDN controllers are the brains of the network, offering a centralized view
of the overall network.

 Southbound APIs relay information to the switches and routers in network.

 Northbound APIs communicate with the applications and deploy services.
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 An approach to designing, building and operating large-scale networks
based on programming the forwarding decisions in routers and switches
via software from a central server.

 SDN differs from traditional networking, which requires configuring each

device separately and which relies on protocols that cannot be altered.

 The central concept behind SDN is to enable developers and network

managers to have the more control over network equipment.
SDN Functionality
 Two key functions of router are
 forwarding: switching packets from router’s input to appropriate router output
 routing: determine route taken by packets from source to destination

 Control function decides the route the traffic takes and the relative priority of
traffic, and a Data function, forwards data based on control-function policy.

 In traditional networks, these functions were performed in an integrated fashion

at each network device (router, L3 switch etc).
Control and Data Planes
 SDN approach splits the two functions between a data plane and a control
plane that are on separate devices (see Figure 3.2).
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 Earlier network engineers configure network devices using a command
line interface. This work can be time-consuming and error-prone.

 A SDN uses networking software (controller) to configure the network.

 SDN adds new features and protocols to network devices. These features
and protocols enable third-party applications to dynamically configure the
devices and define how the devices process data.
Software Defined Networking (SDN)
 On a network device, data enters and leaves through the data plane.

 The decisions of what to do with the data are made on the control plane.

 Before SDN, these two planes essentially functioned as one.

 SDN separated the planes to enable completion of network configuration

and decisions through a remote control plane.
SDN Functionality
 Control in a traditional network is
exercised by means of a routing
and control network protocol that
is implemented in each network
node.

 This approach is relatively

inflexible and requires all the
network nodes to implement the
same protocols.
SDN Functionality
 Traditionally, the routing function is
distributed among the routers in a
network
 In an SDN controlled network,
routing function is centralize within
the SDN controller
 The controller can develop a
consistent view of the network state
for calculating shortest paths and can
implement application aware routing
policies
SDN Functionality
 The data plane switches are
relieved of the processing and
storage burden associated with
routing, leading to improved
performance.
SDN Functionality
 With SDN, a central controller
performs all complex
functionality, including routing,
naming, policy declaration, and
security checks.
SDN control plane
 SDN control plane consists of one or more SDN controllers.
 The SDN controller defines the data flows that occur in the SDN data
plane.
 Each flow through the network is configured by the controller, which
verifies that the communication is permissible by the network policy.
 If the controller allows a flow requested by an end system, it computes a
route for the flow to take, and adds an entry for that flow in each of the
switches along the path.
 With all complex function subsumed by the controller, switches simply
manage flow tables whose entries can only be populated by the controller.
SDN data plane
 The switches constitute the data plane and perform only data forwarding.

 The data plane is simply responsible for forwarding packets,

 whereas the control plane provides the “intelligence” in designing routes,

setting priority and routing policy parameters.

 Communication between the controller and the switches uses a standardized

protocol.
Software Defined Architecture
 Figure 3.3 elaborates on the
structure shown in Figure 2.15,
showing more detail of the SDN
approach.
 Data Plane
 The data plane consists of physical
switches and virtual switches.

 In both cases, the switches are

responsible for forwarding packets.
Southbound API
 However, each switch must
implement a model, or abstraction,
of packet forwarding that is uniform
and open to the SDN controllers.

 This model is defined in terms of an

open application programming
interface (API) between the control
plane and the data plane
(southbound API).
Southbound API
 The most prominent example of such
an open API is OpenFlow.

 OpenFlow is used to control the

switches in the data plane.

 The OpenFlow specification defines

both a protocol between the control
and data planes and an API by which
the control plane can invoke the
OpenFlow protocol.
Control Plane
 SDN controllers can be
implemented directly on a server
or on a virtual server.

 In addition, controllers use

information about capacity and
demand obtained from the
networking equipment through
which the traffic flows.
Northbound APIs
 SDN controllers also expose
northbound APIs, which allow
developers and network managers to
deploy a wide range of off-the-shelf
and custom-built network applications.

 A number of vendors offer a

REpresentational State Transfer
(REST)-based API to provide a
programmable interface to their SDN
controller.
East/westbound API
 Also envisioned but not yet
defined are horizontal APIs
(east/westbound), which would
enable communication and
cooperation among groups or
federations of controllers to
synchronize state for high
availability.
Application Plane
 At the application plane are a
variety of applications that
interact with SDN controllers.

 SDN applications are programs

that may use an abstract view of
the network for their decision-
making goals.
Application Plane
 These applications convey their
network requirements and desired
network behavior to the SDN
controller via a northbound API.
 Examples of applications are
 energy-efficient networking,
 security monitoring,
 access control, and
 network management.
Characteristics of Software-Defined Networking
 The control plane is separated from the data plane.
 Data plane devices become simple packet-forwarding devices.
 The control plane is implemented in a centralized controller.
 The SDN controller has a centralized view of the network or networks
under its control.
 The controller is portable software that can run on commodity servers and
is capable of programming the forwarding devices based on a centralized
view of the network.
Characteristics of Software-Defined Networking
 Open interfaces are defined between the devices in the control plane
(controllers) and those in the data plane.

 The network is programmable by applications running on top of the SDN

controllers.

 The SDN controllers present an abstract view of network resources to the

applications.
Acknowledgement : content taken from

Foundations of Modern Networking

SDN, NFV, QoE, IoT, and Cloud
William Stallings
Pearson Education, Inc.