Emulation of software-defined network using mininet

Software-defined networking (SDN) represents a new structure of computer network that simplifies and improves network management by splitting the control plane and data plane. Since SDN is regarded as a new research issue, the application of SDN in practice faces some barriers. Most network devices such as routers and switches that implement SDN functionalities are expensive. An alternative solution in SDN research and experiments is to use network emulators. By using Mininet, an open source network emulator, this study simulates SDN implementations in different environments. Results show that the simulation environment affects building network topology time.
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Emulation of software-defined network using mininet DALAT UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE Volume 11, Issue 1, 2021 80-92 EMULATION OF SOFTWARE-DEFINED NETWORK USING MININET Do Van Khoaa*, Tran Ngo Nhu Khanha a The Faculty of Information Technology, Dalat University, Lam Dong, Vietnam * Corresponding author: Email: khoadv@dlu.edu.vn Article history Received: February 20th, 2020 Received in revised form: October 4th, 2020 | Accepted: December 29th, 2020 Available online: February 5th, 2020AbstractSoftware-defined networking (SDN) represents a new structure of computer network thatsimplifies and improves network management by splitting the control plane and data plane.Since SDN is regarded as a new research issue, the application of SDN in practice facessome barriers. Most network devices such as routers and switches that implement SDNfunctionalities are expensive. An alternative solution in SDN research and experiments is touse network emulators. By using Mininet, an open source network emulator, this studysimulates SDN implementations in different environments. Results show that the simulationenvironment affects building network topology time.Keywords: Control plane; Controller; Data plane; Mininet; Software-defined networking.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.37569/DalatUniversity.11.1.657(2021)Article type: (peer-reviewed) Full-length research articleCopyright © 2021 The author(s).Licensing: This article is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 80 DALAT UNIVERSITY JOURNAL OF SCIENCE [NATURAL SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY]1. INTRODUCTION The vigorous growth of the internet and information communication technology,along with novel technologies such as mobile, cloud computing, big data, and the rapidlyincreasing demand for digital transformation, require a proportional development ofinfrastructure for bandwidth, convenient access, and flexible management (Masoudi &Ghaffari, 2016). Expansion of network infrastructure to meet these requirements willprobably make management and configuration tasks more complicated and time-consuming (Xia et al., 2015). Software-defined networking (SDN) is designed to simplifyand improve network management, prioritizing flexibility by isolating two components:the control plane and the data plane. This new generation of network architecture hasreceived much attention by researchers. However, since it is only in the early stages ofdevelopment, the lack of support for SDN by network devices (such as routers andswitches) and the high costs are impediments to research and development of SDN (deOliveira et al., 2014). One solution for testing and researching SDN is to use emulators.This study simulates SDN using the Mininet emulation tool in different simulationenvironments. Through the implementation of many network topologies in differentenvironments, the results are analyzed and evaluated to determine the impact on theexecution time when simulating SDN using Mininet.1.1. Software-Defined Networking Overview For SDN technology, control is centralized at the control layer, with the idea ofseparating the control plane and the forwarding (or data) plane, allowing the networkcontrol to be simpler for programming. Furthermore, the network infrastructure isindependent of network applications and services. For the user, the configuration ofnetwork devices does not necessarily need to be done directly, but only through APIs tobuild applications for the whole network (Masoudi & Ghaffari, 2016). The SDN architecture (Figure 1) has two main components: the control planeabove and the data plane below. The forwarding component includes forwarding devicessuch as routers or switches, and it communicates with the network control component viaAPIs called the Southbound API. The network control section consists of the NetworkOperating System and abstracted objects. Users can interact directly with the controlsthrough APIs called Northbound APIs. In particular, Kreutz et al. (2014) define SDNarchitecture with four pillars: • The control plane and the data plane of a network device are no longer tied together as usual but separated. Control has been removed from network devices, and the network device will focus on simple packet transport. • Network devices make forwarding decisions based on the data stream, rather than on the destination the MAC address or destination IP. A data stream defines a set of values to match and the set of actions that will be imposed on packets that have corresponding fields in the header matching the values. In an SDN architecture using the OpenFlow protocol, a data stream is a 81 Do Van Khoa and Tran Ngo Nhu Khanh collection of packets that are transferred from the source device to the target device. All data stream packets are subject to identical service policies at the forwarding devices. The data flow abstraction allows the behavior of different types of network devices to be unified, including routers, switches, firewalls, and intermediaries. Programming data flows permits unprecedented flexibility compared to previous data flows, which were limited to the performance of a flow table. • Logic control is transferred to an external entity, called the SDN controller or the Network Operating System (NOS). The NOS is a software platform that runs on servers and provides the resources ...