Software

Defined
Networks
 Software
Defined
Networks

Vinod K. Mishra

MOMENTUM PRESS, LLC, NEW YORK

Software Defined Networks

Copyright © Momentum Press®, LLC, 2019.

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 Abstract

The Software Defined Networking (SDN) is one of the most promising

recent developments in networking. Together with Network Function
­Virtualization (NFV) it has the potential to automate the networking tasks
in a seamless manner. This book introduces the reader to this burgeoning
field and explains the basic concepts within a historical context. It should
be useful to senior undergraduates, beginning graduate students, and also
to anyone curious about this topic.

KeyWords

Software Defined Networking; Network Function Virtualization; Open-

Flow; Network Automation; control plane; data plane
 Contents

List of Figures ix
List of Table xi
Acknowledgment xiii
1  A Brief Historical Overview of Networking 1
1.1  Earlier Milestones in Communication 1
1.2  Digital Telecommunications 2
1.3 Communication by Computer Networking 3
1.4  The Internet 3
1.5 References 4
2  Current Networking Architecture 5
2.1  Network Classification 5
2.2  Circuit-Switched Networks 6
2.3 Packet-Switched or Internet Protocol (IP) Networks 8
2.4 Circuit-Packet Hybrid Networking: Voice over IP
as an Example 9
2.5  Virtual Private Networking (VPN) 11
2.5 Shortcomings of the Current Networking Paradigm 13
2.6 Requirements for Any New Networking Paradigm 14
2.7 References 16
3  History of Software-Defined Networking 17
3.1 Early Approaches to Programmable Data Plane (DP) 17
3.2 Early Approaches to Control Plane (CP) and Data Plane
(DP) Separation 21
3.3 Early Approaches to Network Function Virtualization (NFV) 24
3.4 Early Approaches to Network Operating Systems (NOS) 25
3.5  Other Initiatives 26
3.6 References 26
4  An Overview of Software Defined Networking 27
4.1  High-Level SDN Architecture 27
viii  •   Contents

4.2  Data Plane (DP) 28

4.3  Control Plane (CP) 29
4.4 Application and Management Plane (MP) 32
4.5  Role of Orchestration in SDN 34
4.6  SDN Security 35
4.7 References 36
5  Network Function Virtualization and SDN 37
5.1  Introduction and a Short History 37
5.2  ETSI NFV Architecture 38
5.3  NFV Interfaces 41
5.4  A Use-Case Example 45
5.5  Relation of NFV to SDN 45
5.6  Architecture Combining SDN and NFV 46
5.7 References 48
6  Heterogeneous and Multidomain SDN 49
6.1 Introduction 49
6.2  Non-SDN Heterogeneous Network 51
6.3  SDN Heterogeneous Networks 52
6.4  Interdomain Communication 53
6.5 Controller Placement in Multidomain SDN 54
6.6 An Example of Multidomain SDN System: DISCO 57
6.7 References 58
7  Hybrid SDN 59
7.1 Introduction 59
7.2 Prevalent Hybrid Network Architectures 62
7.3 Communication Across Hybrid Networks 63
7.4 Trade-offs of Different Hybrid Choices 64
7.5  Examples and Considerations 66
7.6 References 70
8  Cognitive SDN 71
8.1 Introduction 71
8.2  The Cognitive Loop 72
8.3 The Cognitive Process 73
8.4 Non-SDN Cognitive Network Architectures 74
8.5 SDN-Oriented Cognitive Network Architectures 75
8.6  Example: SDCoN 77
8.7 References 78
About the Author 79
Index 81
 List of Figures

Figure 2.1.  Circuit-switched network. 7

Figure 2.2.  Packet-switched network. 9
Figure 2.3.  Diagram for a typical VoIP call. 10
Figure 2.4.  VPN data flow. 12
Figure 3.1.  ANTS Capsule header fields. 19
Figure 3.2. Standard signaling architecture and proposed
programmability architecture in P1520 [4]. 20
Figure 3.3.  A typical PCE architecture. 23
Figure 3.4.  A typical PCE operation. 23
Figure 4.1.  The SDN layers. 27
Figure 5.1.  Basic components of an NFV architecture. 39
Figure 5.2.  NFV interfaces. 41
Figure 5.3.  FlowNAC example for integrating SDN and NFV. 47
Figure 6.1.  ODL+SDNi Controller Architecture from Ref [2]. 54
Figure 6.2. Role of coordinate controller in multi-vendor
multidomain n­ etwork as given in [5]. 56
Figure 6.3.  DISCO Controller Architecture from Ref [3]. 58
Figure 7.1.  Classification based on architecture and components. 60
Figure 8.1.  Cognitive Loop. 72
Figure 8.2.  Cognitive network and corresponding SDN architecture. 76
 List of Table

Table 7.1.  Trade-offs of different choices 65

 Acknowledgment

To Kamali, whose support was crucial in getting this book completed.

 CHAPTER 1

A Brief Historical
Overview of Networking

The ability to communicate is one of the hallmarks of life. Wherever there

are separate living entities, communication is needed for self-preservation,
survival, and general well-being. Language and cellular communication
mechanisms are two of the many examples. But in general, the term itself
is used for communicating via physical (mechanical, electrical, acoustic,
or electromagnetic) means. In addition, encrypting or encoding the con-
tents for security is another very important attribute of the communication.
The one-to-one communication was more prevalent in early human
civilization. One-to-many or many-to-one communication was needed in
very special situations like large gatherings or during times of war. Large
delays were tolerated as the pace of life was slower compared to later
times. Physical communication networks were not needed in general and
consequently they were not developed. We have information about some
early forms of encryption in antiquity, for example, Caesar’s cipher, and so
on. Their significance was realized as a means of secure communication.

1.1 Earlier Milestones in Communication

The origin of premodern communication devices and systems can be traced

to many ancient cultures like China, Greece, India, and others. Some of
the systems like smoke signals, chains of beacons, and others were prev-
alent everywhere. In later times, some sophisticated technologies based
on hydraulics and optical signals were developed in the Western world,
which were used mainly in times of war. Here we basically enumerate the
most important inventions and discoveries leading to modern times [1–3].
2  •   Software Defined Networks

(a) Telegraph was invented earlier, but the key invention of “Morse
code” by Samuel Morse gave the telegraph widespread use and
popularity. It had the following components: (i) The communica-
tion “protocol” consisted of representing letters of alphabet and
other characters by a series of short and long taps (also known as
dots and dashes) of a Morse code, (ii) a sender, (iii) a telegraphic
link, and (iv) a receiver. For a long time, a human operator was
required for coding and decoding the messages until Emile Baudot
transformed this manual aspect of telegraphy by adding multiplex-
ing and automatic binary coding and decoding to the technology.
Some of these innovations have become part of even the modern
communication systems.
(b) Wired Telephony was the next revolutionary advance in commu-
nication. It was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876 and
initially consisted of speakers connected to a human-operated cen-
tral switchboard. The operators physically connected the callers on
both ends by physically inserting a plug in the switchboard. Later
advances and the creation of American Telephone and Telegraph
(AT&T) by the federal government as a regulated monopoly forced
a standard on this burgeoning technology. The resulting infrastruc-
ture was copied all over the world and ushered us in the age of
modern communication.
(c) Wireless Telephony was the next logical step and became possible
only after the propagation of electromagnetic waves was under-
stood correctly. Guglielmo Marconi, Jagdish Chandra Bose, and
Reginald Fessenden are considered to be the main inventors of this
technology in its early stages. It gave rise to the worldwide adop-
tion of radio transmission for military and civilian needs.

Video telephony was invented in the Bell Labs using modulated

light beams by Charles Tainter. The wider adoption of these techniques
in fiber-optic communication is behind the modern communication infra-
structure. The computer networking and the Internet are the direct descen-
dants of this approach.

1.2  Digital Telecommunications

As noted earlier, initially the telephony used analog signals, which was
soon seen to lead to many problems. The signal accumulated errors with
distance, the pulse shape changed, and became weaker as well. The digiti-
zation of the voice signals using Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) mitigated
many of these problems.
 A Brief Historical Overview of Networking   •  3

In the PCM, the pulse or waveform amplitude is sampled at regular

intervals and the value is converted in binary bit sequence in a process
called “quantization.” The detail of the waveform shape that is captured
depends on the number of bits used for representing the sample and the
rate at which it is sampled. For example, a 5-bit sampling will be much
nearer to the original than a 4-bit one. Higher bit resolution and sampling
rate provided better results, but then more bandwidth was needed to send
this information.
The quality of the quantization process is controlled by Nyquist’s the-
orem, which states that the sampling frequency must be greater than twice
the bandwidth of the input signal for perfect reconstruction of the original
signal. For telephone network, this translates to 8,000 samples per second.
Further, the errors occurring due to the transmission are corrected by using
Error Correction Codes (ECC). At the receiving side, the original analog
signal is reconstructed from the digital information.

1.3 Communication by Computer
Networking

Invention of computing in modern sense can be attributed to Charles

Babbage and Alan Turing. In the beginning the computers were stand-
alone devices and were used solely for computations. Any communica-
tion between them was carried out by dedicated and expensive cables.
The invention of modem (short for modulator–demodulator) by Bell Labs
­scientists changed this situation. It became possible to use the standard
telephone lines for intercomputer communication. The modem trans-
formed the digital information back to analog pulses before sending them
over the telephone line and a reverse process was used at the receiving
side to recover the digital information.
The modem was a revolutionary invention and it made possible the
nationwide communication networks using computers as nodes and tele-
phone lines as links. The scale of networks led to their designations as
Local Area Networks (LAN), Metro Area Networks (MAN), and Wide
Area Networks (WAN). Later wireless and satellite nodes were also
brought in the architecture for a truly global communication network.

1.4 The Internet

Internet is the most successful and global communication infrastructure

of the modern age and ranks as the most transformative technology to
4   •   Software Defined Networks

emerge in the 20th century. It is an example of a very successful outcome

of the public investment in sustained research and innovation enterprise.
The origins of the Internet can be traced to the famous ARPANET
program of the U.S. research agency Defense Advanced Research Project
Agency (DARPA). The following concepts and ideas played a basic role
in its initial development.

1. It was shown by Leonard Kleinrock that packets of information

rather than circuit-switched data can be a better choice for inter-
computer communication.
2. The concept of “open architecture” was used right from the begin-
ning in which the constituent networks were free to adopt any
technology and specification based on the user requirements. They
could be separately designed and may have unique interfaces for
communicating with other networks, which may be even based on
different technology and even be located in geographically distant
region. In this way packet, satellite, wireless, radio, and other net-
works could communicate with one another.
3. The best-effort delivery of the information packets was part of the
Internet architecture right from the beginning. If a packet was lost
and did not reach its destination, the sender had to retransmit it.
4. There was no concept of global control and operation of the Internet
right from the beginning. This has served well so far, but now there
is a danger of the global Internet splitting up due to total control
exercised by some nations, for example, China.
5. A versatile addressing system was necessary to address different
nodes and this idea became the basis of the Domain Name System
(DNS).

Communication science and technology has led to the modern world

in which the ability to communicate with anyone using voice, text, and
images is taken for granted. In this book, a key technology enabling it
called software define networking will be described and explained.

1.5  References

[1] John Stanard. May 2018. “A History of (Communications) Networks.” http://

govtech.com/magazines/gt/A-History-Of-Communications-Networks.html
[2]  “History of Telecommunication” 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_
of_telecommunication (Retrieved in 2018).
[3] “Brief History of the Internet.” https://internetsociety.org/internet/history-in-
ternet/brief-history-internet/, retrieved in 2018
 Index

A Connection-oriented service,
Active networks transport system 5–6
(ANTS), 19–20 Control plane (CP), 21, 29–32
Agile control plane, 16 Control plane (CP) and data plane
ANTS. See Active networks (DP) separation
transport system description of, 21
APIs. See Application network control program, 22
programming interfaces path computation element
Application programming protocol, 22–24
interfaces (APIs), 15 CP. See Control plane
Automation, 14–15
D
C DARPA. See Defense Advanced
Centralized SDNC, 30 Research Project Agency
Circuit-packet hybrid networking, Data plane (DP)
9–11 active networks transport system,
Circuit-switched network 19–20
operation of, 7–8 IEEE P1520 standard, 20–21
overview of, 6–7 NetScript, 21
Cisco One Networking programmability, 17–19
Environment, 66–67 in software defined networking,
Cisco onePK, 66–67 28–29
Class-based hybrid SDN, 62, 66 Defense Advanced Research
Cognitive SDN, 75–77 Project Agency (DARPA), 4,
characteristics, 71 18
cognitive loop, 72–73 Digital telecommunications, 2–3
cognitive process, 73–74 DISCO. See Distributed
examples, 77 multidomain SDN controllers
Communication Distributed multidomain SDN
by computer networking, 3 controllers (DISCO), 57–58
hybrid SDN, 61, 63–64 Distributed SDNCs, 30
milestones in, 1–2 DP. See Data plane
Computer networking, 3 Dynamic resource management,
Connection-less service, 6 15
82  •   Index

E communication, 61, 63–64

East-West bound interface cross-optimization, 61–62
(EWBI), 31–32 examples and considerations,
Element management system 66–69
(EMS), 40 integrated, 63, 66
EMS. See Element management overview of, 59–60
system service-based, 62, 66
End-to-end circuit-switching of topology-based, 62, 65–66
signals, 7–8 trade-offs, 64–66
Ethane, 25–26
European Union initiative, 26 I
EWBI. See East-West bound IEEE P1520 standard, 20–21
interface IKEV2. See Internet Key
Exchange, Version 2
F Integrated hybrid SDN, 62, 66
Floodlight, 31 Interdomain communication,
FlowVisor, 31 53–54
ForCES. See Forwarding and Interfaces, NFV, 41–45
Control Element Separation Internet, 3–4
Forwarding and Control Element Internet Key Exchange, Version 2
Separation (ForCES), 29 (IKEV2), 13
Internet protocol networks, 8–9
G
GENI. See Global Environment L
for Network Innovation L2TP. See Layer 2 tunneling
Global Environment for Network protocol
Innovation (GENI), 24–25 LAN. See Local area network
Language-based virtualization,
H 32–33
Heterogeneity in networks Layer 2 tunneling protocol
communication protocols, 51 (L2TP), 13
mode of operation, 51 Local area network (LAN), 5
operating systems, 51
optical technologies, 49–50 M
satellite technologies, 50 MAN. See Metro area network
switching, 50–51 Management plane (MP),
wireless technologies, 50 32–34
Heterogeneous SDN network Metro area network (MAN), 5
multidomain, 52–53 MP. See Management plane
single-domain, 52 Multidomain heterogeneous SDN
High-level SDN architecture, network, 52–53
27–28 controller placement, 54–57
Hybrid SDN example of, 57–58
class-based, 62–63, 66 scalability, 55–57
coexistence of, 60 Multiplexing, 8
 Index   •   83

N NOS. See Network operating

NBI. See Northbound interface systems
NCP. See Network control
program O
NetScript, 21 ONOS. See Open network
Network classification operating system
scale, 5 OpenContrail, 31
services, 5–6 OpenDayLight, 31
transmission technology, 6 OpenFlow, 29
Network control program (NCP), Open network operating system
22 (ONOS), 31
Network function virtualization OpenVPN, 13
(NFV), 24–25 Orchestration, 15, 34
architecture combining SDN
with, 46–48 P
case example, 45 Packet-switched network, 8–9
ETSI architecture PAN. See Personal area network
element management system, Path computation client (PCC), 22
40 Path computation element
network function communication protocol
virtualization infrastructure, (PCEP), 22
38 Path computation element (PCE)
NFV management and protocol, 22–24
orchestration, 40–41 PCC. See Path computation client
virtualized network functions, PCEP. See Path computation
40 element communication
interfaces, 41–45 protocol
SDN and, 45–46 Personal area network (PAN), 5
short history of, 37–38 Point-to-point protocol (PPTP), 12
Network function virtualization PPTP. See Point-to-point protocol
infrastructure (NFVI), 38 Programming languages, 33
Networking paradigm
requirements for, 14–16 R
shortcomings of, 13–14 Ryu, 31
Network operating systems (NOS),
25–26 S
NFV. See Network function SBI. See Southbound interface
virtualization Scalability, 55–57
NFVI. See Network function SDN. See Software defined
virtualization infrastructure networking
Non-SDN cognitive network, SDNC. See Software defined
74–75 networking controller
Non-SDN heterogeneous network, Secure socket tunneling protocol
51 (SSTP), 13
Northbound interface (NBI), 32 Security of network devices, 15
84   •   Index

Service-based hybrid SDN, 62, 66 Topology-based hybrid SDN, 62,

Shared-media broadcast, 6 65–66
Single-domain heterogeneous Traffic engineering database
SDN network, 52 (TED), 22
Software defined networking
(SDN) V
control plane, 29–32 Video telephony, 2
data plane, 28–29 Virtualized network functions,
high-level architecture, 27–28 40
management plane, 32–34 Virtual private networking (VPN),
orchestration role, 34 11–13
security, 35–36 Voice over Internet protocol
Software defined networking (VoIP), 9–11
controller (SDNC), 30 VoIP. See Voice over Internet
Southbound interface (SBI), 29 protocol
SSTP. See Secure socket tunneling VPN. See Virtual private
protocol networking
Switched point-to-point networks, Vulnerabilities, in SDN, 35–36
6
W
T WAN. See Wide area network
TED. See Traffic engineering Wide area network (WAN), 5
database Wired telephony, 2
Telegraph, 2 Wireless telephony, 2