SD-ALB: Software Defined Adaptive load balancing in Data Center Network

Abstract

Network monitoring has crucial importance in data center networks to analyze the behavior of the underlying network. This analysis is used for working on multiple network parameters and load balancing is one of them. This article proposes an adaptive load-balancing approach to balance the load between the servers while changing its behavior with a change in traffic. Software Defined Networking (SDN) provides the single point of network configuration called SDN controller. This approach is facilitating the easy implementation of adaptive load balancing in Data Center Networks. The proposed approach is an extension to the LBBCLT load balancing approach that uses a dynamic probe generator to probe the servers about the response time and link bandwidth. We incorporate a path selection module in it and the path is selected using the Ant Colony Optimization. The results show that the bandwidth consumption and throughput have been improved and servers are receiving the load according to their capacities.