FlexForward: Enabling an SDN manageable forwarding engine in Open vSwitch

Abstract

This paper presents FlexForward, an approach for dynamically manage SDN data plane forwarding mechanisms. This feature leverages SDN flexibility in two aspects: (i) it provides a new management method, in which topological infrastructure requirements are satisfied by the most appropriate forwarding mechanism, residing in each managed network element; (ii) further decoupling between control and data planes in SDN by offering tableless forwarding support. As proof of concept, an implementation with different forwarding methods is carried out in Open vSwitch. Results show that FlexForward is able to achieve seamless switchover between forwarding methods. It also allows efficient tableless forwarding implementations, improving by up to 31% in latency, and 90% in throughput, when compared to regular OpenFlow.