A joint approach to multipath routing and rate adaptation for congestion control in OpenFlow software defined network

Abstract

Software Defined Network is a new paradigm in data communication networks. In contrast to the traditional internet network, SDN separates the control function and the function forwarding. SDN controller operates on the principle of a centralized logical controller. This centralized control causes the controller to have a global network knowledge so that SDN can be more effective in managing the network. In this paper, we apply a congestion control mechanism by utilizing the global knowledge possessed by the controller. Congestion control mechanisms implemented by combining multipath routing mechanisms and rate adaptation in an integrated manner. The controller uses the information from the switches that are used to determine the route along the source and destination, as well as to determine the appropriate rate for each flow. The experimental results show that the combination of routing and rate adaptation can effectively be used to control congestion, resulting in a better performance than single path routing and multipath routing without rate adaptation.