Tunneling over IP Based on Match-Action Table in Software Defined Networks

Abstract

Tunneling over IP has been widely used in the field of network virtualization, overlay network, heterogeneous network, and so on. Nonetheless, there exists maintenance difficulty, management complexity, low efficiency in tunneling. SDN provides open and unified APIs, which greatly enhances the network management efficiency. However, as a significant southbound interface, OpenFlow does not primitively support the establishment of IP tunnels, therefore it still relies on traditional manual configurations. In this paper, we adopt Match-Action Table (MAT) programming model and propose a new IP tunnel mechanism, called MAT tunnel. The MAT tunnel can encapsulate and decapsulate packets directly by installing flow rules instead of manually configuring tunnel ports. We implement the MAT tunnel prototype based on Open vSwitch and Floodlight. We also construct a simulation environment based on a real topology. Comparing traditional tunnels, the MAT tunnel can reduce the average delay while improving the programmability and flexibility. In addition, the tunnel path switching tests suggest the MAT tunnel can significantly decrease the delay jitter and throughput loss.