QoS improvement with an optimum controller selection for software-defined networks

• Published in: PloS one 2019-05, Vol.14 (5), p.e0217631-e0217631
• Main Authors: Ali, Jehad, Roh, Byeong-Hee, Lee, Seungwoon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Central processing units; Cloud Computing; Computer and Information Sciences; Computer Communication Networks; Computer engineering; Computer networks; Computer programs; Computer simulation; Controllers; CPUs; Data Management; Decision making; Decoupling; Electronic devices; Engineering and Technology; Flexibility; Humans; Internet; Internet of Things; Multiple criterion; Optimization; Physical Sciences; Qualitative analysis; Quality of service architectures; Quantitative analysis; Records; Research and Analysis Methods; Research Design; Software; Software-defined networking; Studies; Topology; Traffic delay; User interface; User-Computer Interface; Wide area networks
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0217631

The software-defined networking (SDN) paradigm has simplified the management of computer networks by decoupling data and control planes. Moreover, the separation of the data and control planes has transitioned network complexity from traditional devices to controllers; therefore, controllers have become indispensable entities in SDN. Controllers have multiple features and direct the network from a central point and respond to updates to topological changes. However, the supportive capability of these features is strong in one controller but weak in another. Due to several controllers and each controller having a set of features, selecting an optimal SDN controller can be considered to be a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. Herein, a two-step approach is proposed for SDN controller selection. First, the controllers are ranked with analytical network process (ANP) according to their qualitative features which influence the performance of these controllers and then a performance comparison is performed to check for the QoS improvement. The controller with a high-weight value from the feature-based comparison is quantitatively analysed by experimental analysis. The main contribution of this paper is checking the applicability of the ANP for controller selection in SDN considering its features and performance analysis in real-world Internet and Brite topologies. The simulation results show that the controller computed through the proposed approach outperforms the controller selected with existing approaches. The selection of an optimum controller with ANP results in a reduction of topology discovery time and delay in the normal and traffic load scenario. Similarly, an increase in throughput with a reasonable utilization of the central processing unit (CPU) is observed for the proposed controller.