Performance modeling and comparison of NFV integrated with SDN: Under or aside?

Fahmin, Ahmed; Lai, Yuan‐Cheng; Hossain, S.; Lin, Ying-Dar

doi:10.1016/j.jnca.2018.04.003

Cited by 23 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Miao et al 15 and Singh et al 16 both adopt PQ although they use different analytical approaches. In the frequency reduction category, various techniques are adopted, and the techniques adopted in literature 10,12,13,20,21 and PIBP are cooperators, rather than the competitors. Payload buffering 11 and MPT 14 use a similar technique, buffering, to reduce the controller load.…”

Section: Performance Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The frequency of the SDN controller being overloaded depends on traffic dynamics and the number of switches that the controller is responsible for, so estimating the exact frequency is difficult in the real world. However, from many previous literatures, 5–14 the overloaded controller is actually a problem and must be dealt with. Many previous studies tried to relieve the controller load, and they can be classified into three categories: packet scheduling, 15,16 multi‐controller architecture, 5–9,17–19 and frequency reduction 10–14,20,21 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The frequency reduction category offloads the partial workload of the controller to switches 10–14,20,21 . A distributed flow management architecture, DIFANE (DIstributed Flow Architecture for Networked Enterprises), 20 was proposed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, only the packets traveling through the first switch will be processed as Packet‐In messages but can cause table hit in other switches along the path because the forwarding rules for this flow have been installed. Fahmin et al 13 investigated the combination of SDN and virtualized network functions (VNFs). It proved that the switch directly interacting with VNFs is much better than the controller interacting with VNFs because the former can avoid the controller's participation and thus reduce the controller load.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Buffering and prioritization in switches for fast processing table‐miss packets in software‐defined networks

Lai

Hailemariam

Chen

et al. 2021

Int J Communication

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Summary In software‐defined networks, the switch forwards incoming packets according to forwarding rules recorded in the flow entries. When a switch receives a table‐miss packet, meaning no match with any flow entry, it sends this packet as a Packet‐In message to the controller for its further processing. Many Packet‐In messages will cause large overhead and long packet delay. This paper proposes a novel method, Packet‐In Buffering and Prioritization (PIBP), which buffers Packet‐In messages and prioritizes these messages to reduce the number of Packet‐In messages and accelerate their processing, respectively. The concept of PIBP is sending only the first table‐miss packet of each flow to the controller. The other table‐miss packets belonging to the same flow are temporarily stored in the switch. Moreover, these messages have a higher priority. That is, after the packet sent from the controller has been forwarded from the switch, the buffered packets belonging to the same flow are also immediately forwarded. We formally analyze the performance of PIBP with queuing theory. The analytical and simulation results show that PIBP can decrease the average delay of table‐miss packets compared with two typical methods, Priority Queue and Mismatched Packets Table.

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Section: Performance Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Buffering and prioritization in switches for fast processing table‐miss packets in software‐defined networks

Lai

Hailemariam

Chen

et al. 2021

Int J Communication

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“…The models presented in [79] are the first to model an SDN with NFV (Network function virtualization). In this work, two models: NFV under the controller, and NFV aside the controller are analysed.…”

Section: Queueing Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling and Performance Analysis of OpenFlow Switches in Software-Defined Networking

Singh¹

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<p>Software-Defined-Networking (SDN) simplifies the configuration complexity in the computer communication network by decoupling the control plane from the data plane in a switch. In SDN, the switch has the data plane only and is configured by the logically centralised controller which simplifies the forwarding of packets in the network. However, an SDN switch is sensitive to delay and loss of packets which significantly affects the network performance. This thesis uses queueing theory to conduct modelling and performance analysis of OpenFlow-based SDN switches. OpenFlow is the de-facto protocol for communication between an SDN switch and the controller. Using queueing theory, three aspects of packet processing in an SDN switch are explored. First, the existing research has primarily modelled the output buffer of an SDN switch using two buffer sharing mechanisms: the single shared buffer and the priority buffer. However, the effect of buffer dimensioning in these buffer sharing mechanisms has not been investigated. Buffer dimensioning helps in determining the minimum buffer capacity for a desired loss probability. The research in this thesis shows that the use of priority buffer in an SDN switch reduces the time to update flow tables than the shared buffer but at the cost of a higher buffer capacity. Second, much of the existing research has not investigated the impact of internal buffering of data packets whereby a fraction of a data packet header is sent to the controller instead of an entire data packet. To investigate the impact of internal buffering, the queueing model for an SDN switch with the internal buffer is developed. The investigation shows that at the time of congestion, the internal buffer in an SDN switch improves the network performance with lower delay and lower packet loss. Finally, existing research has focused on a software switch in SDN and very little research has studied the performance of a hardware switch. To characterise the performance of SDN-based hardware and software switches and identify the tradeoffs between them, a unified queueing model has been developed. The unified queueing model is an analytical tool for network engineers to predict delay and packet loss in their SDN deployments. The analysis shows the benefits of a hardware switch over a software switch. These benefits are lower delay and lower packet loss. However, the increasing involvement of the controller reduces the benefit of using a hardware switch, i.e. forwarding packets at the line speed rate. This research guides network designers and analysts in the selection of the shared or buffer model for an SDN switch for their desired Quality of Service (QoS). Furthermore, the developed queueing model for an SDN switch with the internal buffer studies the impact of internal buffering in an SDN switch. Finally, the unified queueing model helps in the selection of a software or hardware switch in SDN.</p>

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P4toNFV: Offloading from P4 switches to NFV in programmable data planes

Pekar,

Makara,

Lai

et al. 2023

Int J Communication

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SummaryP4 combines the benefits of hardware‐based networking with the adaptability of software‐based network operations. However, when faced with intricate network functions, P4 switches reveal constraints in memory and processing primitives. To address these, we advocate offloading traffic demanding intricate processing from the programmable data plane to network function virtualization (NFV). By leveraging this approach, P4 switches handle the core data plane, ensuring maximum performance, whereas virtualized network functions (VNF) cater to the intricate processing. Central to our research is the optimization of this offloading process, specifically considering delay constraints. We developed an analytical model that examines a P4 switch overseen by an SDN controller, integrating an offloading capability to NFV. The principal objective was to determine an offloading rate that minimizes packet processing delay. To this end, we employed a Bounded method, an advancement from Brent's method, to determine this optimal rate. The findings indicate that offloading approximately 66% of packets to the VNF achieves the lowest total delay, registering at 0.1505 s. This strategy of optimal offloading can notably reduce the system's average delay as the demand for network functions increases. The optimization technique we adopted exhibited rapid convergence in our experiments, reflecting the method's efficacy. Furthermore, a rigorous parametric sensitivity analysis spanning no offloading, full offloading, and optimal offloading strategies underscores that optimal offloading to NFV consistently augments system performance, particularly in terms of delay reduction. Conclusively, our study furnishes valuable insights into offloading strategies, augmenting the narrative on resource allocation in both PNFs and VNFs.

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Performance modeling and comparison of NFV integrated with SDN: Under or aside?

Cited by 23 publications

References 19 publications

Buffering and prioritization in switches for fast processing table‐miss packets in software‐defined networks

Buffering and prioritization in switches for fast processing table‐miss packets in software‐defined networks

Modelling and Performance Analysis of OpenFlow Switches in Software-Defined Networking

P4toNFV: Offloading from P4 switches to NFV in programmable data planes

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