SDN Management Layer DESIGN REQUIREMENTS AND FUTURE DIRECTION NO OF SLIDES : 26 1

Summary Computer networks are becoming increasingly complex and difficult to manage. Therefore, the aim of Software Define Network is to develop a general management paradigm that is able to hide the details of the physical infrastructure and enable flexible network management. In SDN, the network is considered to have two components including control plane and data plane. However, those two planes are working separately. This paper reviewed existing SDN management layers and identifies new approach in developing such management architectures. Firstly, The heart of management architecture for SDN networks is management layer that performs indirect operation of monitoring and controlling network by providing a programming interface to management applications. Within this architecture, a protocol called Open Flow provides management layer access to switch process as well as flexibility to adapt the configuration of routers and switches from different vendors. Secondly, design requirements of the management layer for Open Flow-based SDN networks requirements that should be supported by the management layer, and the architectural components needed to meet these requirements. Finally, a new architecture called Recursive Internetwork can be used to solve the existing problems.. 2

Outline I. Introduction II. Management Architecture for SDN Networks III. Design Requirements of Management Layer IV. Proposed Approach: RINA Architecture 3

I. Introduction  Software Defined Networking (SDN) enables programmable networks. Compared to traditional networks, SDN separates the network into two different planes: a control plane and a data plane:  Control plane: how to handle and forward traffic?  Data plane: Forward data traffic towards destination. 4

Benefits of SDN  Inexpensive  Centralized  Dynamic  Optimized  Load Balancing  Fault Tolerant 5

II. Management Architecture for SDN Networks  The heart of management architecture for SDN networks is management layer.  Management layers performs indirect operation of monitoring and controlling network by providing a programming interface to management applications. 6

A. Management Architecture Overview  Network devices: Includes switches and routers  Network Device Interface : Provides accessibility to switches via switch process  Controller process: Provide network monitoring and control functionalities.  Network Management Interface: It is exposed by management layer for user application process to manage the network. 7

B. OpenFlow-based SDN networks  Open Flow is a protocol that provides management layer access to switch process.  Provides flexibility to adapt the configuration of routers and switches from different vendors.  It enables easy programming of hardware without being exposed to internal details of devices. 8

C. Administrator-level interface and User-level interface  Network management layer provides two separate interfaces: administrator-level interface and user-level interface.  The administrator-level interface is provided to the network administrator who uses it to manage, monitor and control the network as a whole.  The user-level interface is provided to the end user which can use it to manage specific applications such as video conferencing. 9

D. Policy-based Network Management and scope  In SDN, network management is expressed in term of “high layer” policies rather than the traditional low-level vendor-specific network device configurations. Advantages Simplifying management Reducing programming complexity Allow business- driven network configurations 10

III. Design Requirements of Management Layer  Design requirements of the management layer for Open Flow- based SDN networks  requirements that should be supported by the management layer, and the architectural components needed to meet these requirements 11

A. A Global Network View and General API  A basic requirement of the management layer is to provide a global network view and offer a general API  NOX – First open flow management platform that met such requirement  The global view of NOX includes the switch-level topology, and the location of users, hosts and services. 12

NOX API 13

B. Distributed Controllers  Distribute the management layer to run distributed controllers.  Onix consists of multiple Onix instances  Flexible network state distribution primitives.  Address the scalability issue  Maintains NIB 14

C. Network Virtualization  Network virtualization provides support for multiple isolated virtual networks to be built on top of the same physical network.  it can improve resource utilization of the physical network  it can be used to build (virtual) testbeds that provide a safe and realistic environment for developing and testing. 15

FlowVisor  Transparent proxy between user-defined guest controllers and switches.  It enables multiple NOX controllers to share the same switches.  Each guest controller has full control over its sub scope, or so-called network slice  FlowVisor provides transparency and isolation between slices by inspecting, rewriting and policing OpenFlow messages that it receives from guest controllers. 16

D. User-level Interface Support  PANE is a centralized management layer that directly delegates read and write authority from the network administrator to end-user by providing a user-level interface  Concept of participatory networks  PANE uses NIB to store network elements and their states 17

Concepts in the PANE API 18

IV. Proposed Approach: RINA Architecture 19

Problems of existing SDN management layers  weak QoS support and manageability  A better approach is to build a management architecture on top of a new network architecture that avoids the shortcomings of the TCP/IP architecture 20

Recursive Internetwork Architecture (RINA)  RINA has two main design principles: 1. divide and conquer (recursion) 2. separation of mechanisms and policies  RINA simplifies the network system by using only two policy-configurable protocols: 1. the Common Distributed Application Protocol (CDAP) 2. the Error and Flow Control Protocol (EFCP) 21

Characteristics of RINA  RINA provides better manageability support with scoping  RINA supports QoS through the RINA API to connect application processes  Southbound API and Northbound API are merely replaced by the unified and recursive RINA API, which provides a high level (both administrative and user) interface  RINA management architecture does not build upon existing SDN (or traditional) network architectures. 22

FCAPS Links  We can say that the idea of SDN is closely related to Configuration management because SDN after all is dictating the way network devices are configured through a software- defined layer rather than the traditional non-SDN way.  RINA is related to performance since it was proposed to improve the QoS of the networks. 23

Conclusion  Our opinion about RINA 1.Reasonable conception but not proven 2.Further analysis and improvement 24

Opinion about the Paper  The paper was very informative and cleared great amounts of aspects of SDN.  It provided clear view regarding the use of OpenFlow protocol and design requirements of SDN. 25

Reference  Wang, Y. and Matta, I. SDN Management Layer: Design Requirements and Future Direction. Network Protocols (ICNP), IEEE 22nd International Conference, pp Oct,