Csikor, L., Szalay, M., Rétvári, G., Pongrácz, G., Pezaros, D. P. and Toka, L. (2020) Transition to SDN is HARMLESS: Hybrid ARchitecture for Migrating Legacy Ethernet Switches to SDN. IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 28(1), pp. 275-288. (doi: 10.1109/TNET.2019.2958762)
|
Text
205515.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. 3MB |
Abstract
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) offers a new way to operate, manage, and deploy communication networks and to overcome many long-standing problems of legacy networking. However, widespread SDN adoption has not occurred yet due to the lack of a viable incremental deployment path and the relatively immature present state of SDN-capable devices on the market. While continuously evolving software switches may alleviate the operational issues of commercial hardware-based SDN offerings, namely lagging standards-compliance, performance regressions, and poor scaling, they fail to match the cost-efficiency and port density. In this paper, we propose HARMLESS, a new SDN switch design that seamlessly adds SDN capability to legacy network gear, by emulating the OpenFlow switch OS in a separate software switch component. This way, HARMLESS enables a quick and easy leap into SDN, combining the rapid innovation and upgrade cycles of software switches with the port density and cost-efficiency of hardware-based appliances into a fully dataplane-transparent and vendor-neutral solution. HARMLESS incurs an order of magnitude smaller initial expenditure for an SDN deployment than existing turnkey vendor SDN solutions while, at the same time, yields matching, or even better, data plane performance for smaller enterprises.
Item Type: | Articles |
---|---|
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Csikor, Dr Levente and Pezaros, Professor Dimitrios |
Authors: | Csikor, L., Szalay, M., Rétvári, G., Pongrácz, G., Pezaros, D. P., and Toka, L. |
College/School: | College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science |
Journal Name: | IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking |
Publisher: | IEEE |
ISSN: | 1063-6692 |
ISSN (Online): | 1558-2566 |
Published Online: | 06 January 2020 |
Copyright Holders: | Copyright © 2020 IEEE |
First Published: | First published in IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking 28(1): 275-288 |
Publisher Policy: | Reproduced under a Creative Commons License |
University Staff: Request a correction | Enlighten Editors: Update this record