High availability controller architecture for software defined networking

Abstract

Software-defined networking (SDN) offers several benefits by separating the control plane from the data plane of network. However, in this framework, the whole network will rely on the controller which is the heard of SDN architecture. The problems such as single of failure or workload issue will occur if there is only one controller in the network. This paper presents the solution to make multi controllers working together as a complete system with fault tolerance, high available and consistency. This approach takes the advantages of distributed network to solve the current problems. In the study, I apply the distributed Ring election to make controllers have their own roles and functions. The paper also integrates the benefits of gnutella protocol for exchanging information between controllers and replicating the network database. In addition, by the advanced function of distributed file sharing, Gnutella provides the effective way for network data replication. In the study, I have built the Lab for testing, developing the approach and evaluating the result to have experience.