Generic Method for SDN Controller Selection Using AHP and TOPSIS Methods

The control plane plays an essential role in the implementation of Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture. Basically, the control plane is an isolated process and operates on control layer. The control layer encompasses controllers which provide a global view of the entire SDN. The Controller selection is more crucial for the network administrator to meet the specific use case. This research work mainly focuses on obtaining a better SDN controller. Initially, the SDN controllers are selected using integrated Analytic Hierarchy Process and Technique for Order Preference Similarity to Ideal Solution (AHP and TOPSIS) method. It facilitates to select minimal number of controllers based on their features in the SDN application. Finally, the performance evaluation is carried out using the CBENCH tool considering the best four ranked controllers obtained from the previous step. In addition, it is validated with the real-time internet topology such as Abilene and ERNET considering the delay factor. The result shows that the Floodlight controller responds better for latency and throughput. The selection of an optimum controller-Floodlight, using the real-world Internet topologies, outperforms in obtaining the path with a 28.57% decrease in delay in Abilene and 16.94% in ERNET. The proposed work can be applied in high traffic SDN applications.

Automated summary

The control plane is crucial in SDN architecture. This research focuses on selecting a better SDN controller using AHP and TOPSIS methods, and evaluates their performance using CBENCH and real-world Internet topologies. The Floodlight controller performs the best in terms of latency and throughput.