Splicing MPLS and OpenFlow Tunnels Based on SDN Paradigm

Abstract

Software-defined networking has emerged as a promising solution for supporting dynamic network functions and intelligent applications through decoupling control plane from forwarding plane. OpenFlow is the first standardized open management interface of SDN architecture. But it is unrealistic to simply swaping out conventional networks for new infrastructure. How to integrate OpenFlow with existing networks is still a serious challenge. We propose a tunnel splicing mechanism for heterogeneous network with MPLS and OpenFlow routers. Two key mechanisms were suggested: first, abstract the underlying network devices into uniformed nodes in order to shield the details of various equipments, second, strip the manipulation of flow table and lable switch table from controller and fulfill it in an independent module. This new paradigm has been developed on Linux system and tests have been carried out in experiment networks. The emulation results proved its feasibility and efficiency.