title: Distributed controller clustering in software defined networks.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Ahmed
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Abdelaziz
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Ang Tan
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Fong
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Abdullah
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Gani
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Usman
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Garba
authors.affiliation: School of Information Technology, Monash University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Suleman
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Khan
authors.affiliation: Computer Science Department, Comsats Institute of Information Technology, Islamabad, Pakistan.
authors.forename: Adnan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Akhunzada
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
authors.forename: Hamid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Talebian
authors.affiliation: Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security, The University of Texas, at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Kim-Kwang Raymond
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Choo
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003195:Computer Communication Networks; D020407:Internet; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software