Exodus: toward automatic migration of enterprise network configurations to SDNs

We present the design and a prototype of Exodus, a system that consumes a collection of router configurations (e.g., in Cisco IOS), compiles these into a common, intermediate semantic form, and then produces corresponding SDN controller software in a high-level language. Exodus generates networks that are functionally similar to the original networks, with the advantage of having centralized programs that are verifiable and evolvable. Exodus supports a wide array of IOS features, including non-trivial kinds of packet-filtering, reflexive access-lists, NAT, VLANs, static and dynamic routing. Implementing Exodus has exposed several limitations in both today's languages for SDN programming and in OpenFlow itself. We briefly discuss these lessons learned and provide guidance for future SDN migration efforts.