Time-Dependent Performance of a Multi-Hop Software Defined Network

Author Czachórski T.; Gelenbe E.; Kuaban G.; Marek D.
Title Time-Dependent Performance of a Multi-Hop Software Defined Network
Journal Applied Sciences
Year 2021
Status Published
Volume 11
Issue 2469
DOI 10.3390/app11062469
URL https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci
Abstract <p>It has been recently observed that Software Defined Networks (SDN) can change the<br />
paths of different connections in the network at a relatively frequent pace to improve the overall<br />
network performance, including delay and packet loss, or to respond to other needs such as security.<br />
These changes mean that a network that SDN controls will seldom operate in steady state; rather,<br />
the network may often be in transient mode, especially when the network is heavily loaded and<br />
path changes are critically important. Hence, we propose a transient analysis of such networks to<br />
better understand how frequent changes in paths and the switches’ workloads may affect multi-hop<br />
networks’ performance. Since conventional queueing models are difficult to solve for transient<br />
behaviour and simulations take excessive computation time due to the need for statistical accuracy,<br />
we use a diffusion approximation to study a multi-hop network controlled by SDN. The results show<br />
that network optimization should consider the transient effects of SDN and that transients need to be<br />
included in the design of algorithms for SDN controllers that optimize network performance.</p>
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