title: Availability improvement of layer 2 seamless networks using OpenFlow.
abstract: The network robustness and reliability are strongly influenced by the implementation of redundancy and its ability of reacting to changes. In situations where packet loss or maximum latency requirements are critical, replication of resources and information may become the optimal technique. To this end, the IEC 62439-3 Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) provides seamless recovery in layer 2 networks by delegating the redundancy management to the end-nodes. In this paper, we present a combination of the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) approach and PRP topologies to establish a higher level of redundancy and thereby, through several active paths provisioned via the OpenFlow protocol, the global reliability is increased, as well as data flows are managed efficiently. Hence, the experiments with multiple failure scenarios, which have been run over the Mininet network emulator, show the improvement in the availability and responsiveness over other traditional technologies based on a single active path.
authors.affiliation: Department of Communications Engineering, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Alameda de Urquijo, s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
authors.forename: Elias
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Molina
authors.affiliation: Department of Communications Engineering, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Alameda de Urquijo, s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Jacob
authors.affiliation: Department of Communications Engineering, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Alameda de Urquijo, s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
authors.forename: Jon
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Matias
authors.affiliation: Department of Communications Engineering, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Alameda de Urquijo, s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
authors.forename: Naiara
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Moreira
authors.affiliation: Department of Communications Engineering, University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, Alameda de Urquijo, s/n, 48013 Bilbao, Spain.
authors.forename: Armando
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Astarloa