Flow table management scheme applying an LRU caching algorithm

Abstract

In this paper, we address the communication overhead problem between OpenFlow controllers and switches due to table-miss in a flow table. For dealing with table-miss, the switch informs the controller by sending a packet-in message to make the controller perform further actions. However, this packet-in procedure to deal with table-miss may cause a controller overhead when one controller has to process many events. For reducing the controller overhead, we propose a modified flow table management scheme with applying an LRU caching algorithm. By keeping the flow entries in a flow table as many as possible, we can increase the flow entry matching rate.