Fast, accurate simulation for SDN prototyping

  • Authors:
  • Mukta Gupta;Joel Sommers;Paul Barford

  • Affiliations:
  • University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA;Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA;University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the second ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Hot topics in software defined networking
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

Thorough test and evaluation of new software-defined network (SDN)-based applications and configurations present many challenges. Examples of these challenges include scaling to large networks, accuracy, and efficiency in evaluation along with the ability to easily transition between prototype and test environments. Current methods for test and evaluation include new programming languages and frameworks, debugging and static analysis techniques, and VM- and container-based emulation tools. In this paper we describe a simulation-based tool called fs-sdn that complements and expands upon these existing approaches. Our work is designed to address the problem of prototyping and evaluating new SDN-based applications accurately, at large scale, and in a way that enables easy translation to real controller platforms like POX and NOX. We describe the design, implementation and use of fs-sdn, and demonstrate its capability by carrying out a series of experiments using fs-sdn and the Mininet platform in nearly identical configurations. We show that the measurements derived from fs-sdn are accurate compared with Mininet, but offer significant speed and scalability advantages.