Software-Defined Networking (SDN) opened up new opportunities in networking with its concept of the segregated control plane from the data-forwarding hardware, which enables the network to be programmable, adjustable, and reconfigurable dynamically. These characteristics can bring numerous benefits to cloud computing, where dynamic changes and reconfiguration are necessary with its on-demand usage pattern. Although researchers have studied utilizing SDN in cloud computing, gaps still exist and need to be explored further. In this article, we propose a taxonomy to depict different aspects of SDN-enabled cloud computing and explain each element in details. The detailed survey of studies utilizing SDN for cloud computing is presented with focus on data center power optimization, traffic engineering, network virtualization, and security. We also present various simulation and empirical evaluation methods that have been developed for SDN-enabled clouds. Finally, we analyze the gap in current research and propose future directions.
Summary
Software‐defined networking (SDN) has evolved and brought an innovative paradigm shift in computer networks by utilizing a programmable software controller with open protocols. Network functions, previously served on dedicated hardware, have shifted to network function virtualization (NFV) that enabled functions to be virtualized and provisioned dynamically upon generic hardware. In addition to NFV, edge computing utilizes the edge resources close to end‐users, which can reduce the end‐to‐end service delay and the network traffic volume. Although these innovative technologies gained significant attention from both academia and industry, there are limited tools and simulation frameworks for the effectiveness evaluation in a repeatable and controllable manner. Furthermore, large‐scale experimental infrastructures are expensive to setup and difficult to maintain. Even if they are created, they are not available or accessible for the majority of researchers throughout the world. In this paper, we propose a framework for simulating NFV functionalities in both edge and cloud computing environments. In addition to the basic network functionalities supported by SDN in CloudSimSDN, we added new NFV features, such as virtualized network functions allocation, migration, and autoscaling with the support of corresponding network functionalities, such as flow load balancing, rerouting, and service function chaining (SFC) maintenance. We evaluated our simulation framework with autoscaling and placement policies for SFC in the integrated edge and cloud computing environments. The results demonstrate its effectiveness in measuring and evaluating the end‐to‐end delay, response time, resource utilization, network traffic, and power consumption with different algorithms in each scenario.
The variety of existing cloud services creates a challenge for service providers to enforce reasonable Software Level Agreements (SLA) stating the Quality of Service (QoS) and penalties in case QoS is not achieved. To avoid such penalties at the same time that the infrastructure operates with minimum energy and resource wastage, constant monitoring and adaptation of the infrastructure is needed. We refer to Software-Defined Cloud Computing, or simply Software-Defined Clouds (SDC), as an approach for automating the process of optimal cloud configuration by extending virtualization concept to all resources in a data center. An SDC enables easy reconfiguration and adaptation of physical resources in a cloud infrastructure, to better accommodate the demand on QoS through a software that can describe and manage various aspects comprising the cloud environment. In this paper, we present an architecture for SDCs on data centers with emphasis on mobile cloud applications. We present an evaluation, showcasing the potential of SDC in two use cases-QoS-aware bandwidth allocation and bandwidthaware, energy-efficient VM placement-and discuss the research challenges and opportunities in this emerging area.
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