Topology Discovery in Software Defined Networks: Threats, Taxonomy, and State-of-the-Art

Khan, Suleman; Gani, Abdullah; Wahab, Ainuddin Wahid Abdul; Guizani, Mohsen; Khan, Muhammad Khurram

doi:10.1109/comst.2016.2597193

Cited by 137 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…Network engineers are responsible for configuring various network devices, which is a challenging and error-prone task for medium to large-scale networks. Therefore, the separation of the control plane (software) from the data plane [8] (hardware) in SDN is needed to provide more flexible, programmable, cost efficient and innovative network architecture [9]. SDN was first introduced and promoted by Open Network Foundation (ONF) to address the aforementioned issue.…”

Section: Sdn Network Architecturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The SDN architecture logically centralizes the network intelligence in the software-based controllers at the control plane. The network devices (data plane)[8] simply acts packet-forwarding devices that can be programmed using an open interface called OpenFlow [10]. The separation of the control plane from the data plane enables easier deployment of new technologies and applications; network virtualization [11] and various middleboxes can be consolidated into a software control [12].…”

Section: Sdn Network Architecturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Distributed controller clustering in software defined networks

et al. 2017

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Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging promising paradigm for network management because of its centralized network intelligence. However, the centralized control architecture of the software-defined networks (SDNs) brings novel challenges of reliability, scalability, fault tolerance and interoperability. In this paper, we proposed a novel clustered distributed controller architecture in the real setting of SDNs. The distributed cluster implementation comprises of multiple popular SDN controllers. The proposed mechanism is evaluated using a real world network topology running on top of an emulated SDN environment. The result shows that the proposed distributed controller clustering mechanism is able to significantly reduce the average latency from 8.1% to 1.6%, the packet loss from 5.22% to 4.15%, compared to distributed controller without clustering running on HP Virtual Application Network (VAN) SDN and Open Network Operating System (ONOS) controllers respectively. Moreover, proposed method also shows reasonable CPU utilization results. Furthermore, the proposed mechanism makes possible to handle unexpected load fluctuations while maintaining a continuous network operation, even when there is a controller failure. The paper is a potential contribution stepping towards addressing the issues of reliability, scalability, fault tolerance, and inter-operability.

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Section: Sdn Network Architecturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Sdn Network Architecturementioning

confidence: 99%

Distributed controller clustering in software defined networks

et al. 2017

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“…Data Link layer). In Software Defined Networks (SDN), the SDN controller (SDNC) collects the topology information from the data plane and maintains an abstract view of the entire network [1]. This topology discovery (TD) service is crucial for the proper functioning of topology-aware network applications (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[2]. Although discovering the network topology is an essential service for SDNmanaged networks, there is no official standard that defines a TD mechanism in SDN [1]. Therefore, most of current SDNCs (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Self-Healing Topology Discovery Protocol for Software-Defined Networks

2018

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Abstract-This letter presents the design of a self-healing protocol for automatic discovery and maintenance of the network topology in Software Defined Networks (SDN). The proposed protocol integrates two enhanced features (i.e. layer 2 topology discovery and autonomic fault recovery) in a unified mechanism. This novel approach is validated through simulation experiments using OMNET++. Obtained results show that our protocol discovers and recovers the control topology efficiently in terms of time and message load over a wide range of generated networks.

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“…Given the central control policy of SDNs, processing these packets may cause much workload of the controller. Meanwhile, attackers can poison the network topology visibility of the controller by forging or simply relaying link discovery packets . Thereby, an efficient and secure link discovery approach is quite crucial for the performance and reliability of SDNs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

ESLD: An efficient and secure link discovery scheme for software‐defined networking

Zhao

Yao

2018

Int J Communication

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Summary Software‐defined networking simplifies network management by decoupling the control plane from the data plane and centralizing it to the controller. As the brain of the network, the controller gains up‐to‐date holistic network visibility via topology discovery. However, as a key service of topology discovery, the link discovery service opens problems on efficiency and security. On the one hand, sending link discovery packets to all ports wastes not only the limited controller resources (such as CPU and memory) but also control channel bandwidth. On the other hand, attackers may use these packets to create fake links and perform link fabrication attack. Because of the centralized control paradigm, wasting controller resources may degrade network performance, and all the fake links may severely poison the network topology, even causing the denial of service or man‐in‐the‐middle attack. In this paper, we propose an efficient and secure link discovery scheme to improve link discovery performance and resist link fabrication attack caused by the software‐defined networking link discovery service. By adopting port classification technique and directionally transmitting packets to appropriate ports, our approach can reduce or eliminate redundant packets and improve link discovery performance. Meanwhile, we adopt the directional packet transmitting approach and the time‐marked hash‐based message authentication code authenticate scheme to resist the link fabrication attack. A prototype system is implemented on the basis of POX controller and Mininet simulator to evaluate our scheme. Simulation results demonstrate that our scheme can solve the link fabrication problems with less overload of both the control plane and the data plane.

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Topology Discovery in Software Defined Networks: Threats, Taxonomy, and State-of-the-Art

Cited by 137 publications

References 94 publications

Distributed controller clustering in software defined networks

Distributed controller clustering in software defined networks

Self-Healing Topology Discovery Protocol for Software-Defined Networks

ESLD: An efficient and secure link discovery scheme for software‐defined networking

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