Software defined networking architecture, traffic management, security, and placement: A survey

Software-defined networking (SDN) is the potential deployment platform for the future Internet and enterprise networks. In SDN, the logical control (programs) and the forwarding logic (data) are separated. Therefore, it allows to configure the network parameters, routing policies effectively based on the requirements of the environment. The control plane (set of controllers) implements network functions such as, load balancing, energy-efficient routing, security. The data plane (set of switches) receives the forwarding logic from control plane and forwards the packets in the network. This in turn enhances the traffic management performance of the network, and strengthens the security perimeter. The researchers have worked on various directions towards the enhancement of network control functions, performance, and security. However, none of those talks about traffic management challenges in integration with security, energy efficiency and performance dependencies. This survey presents an extensive study, analysis and report of state-of-the-art works on effective traffic management including load balancing and energy-efficient routing, SDN control implementation and deployment architecture, controller security and optimal controller placement that affect traffic management. Moreover, this survey discusses a few unexplored problems in SDN such as scalable deployment, integration with legacy network, and future research road maps to these problems. This will help researchers understanding different theoretical, experimental, and applied research in SDN, challenges in these problems; developing effective solutions; and designing future research road maps.

Automated summary

Software-defined networking (SDN) separates logical control and data forwarding, allowing for flexible network configuration and routing policies to enhance traffic management and security.