Skip to main content

Advertisement

Springer Nature Link
Log in

A new framework for reliable control placement in software-defined networks based on multi-criteria clustering approach

  • Methodologies and Application
  • Published:
Soft Computing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In large-scale software-defined networks (SDNs), multiple controllers are deployed. Each controller has a logically centralized vision of the network that is used to manage a set of switches. In SDN, a challenge known as controller placement problem arises which is very important to specify the number of controllers that are needed and where they should be deployed. These specifications affect the performance of the network. Meanwhile, the assignment of switches to the controllers plays key role in the quality of solution in this problem. However, recent studies focus more on simply assigning switches to their closest controllers based on propagation delay between controller and switches. In this paper, a new controller placement framework is designed which considers both control plane architecture and relation between control and data planes. This framework is considered as a multi-objective optimization model with two objective functions to minimize the flow setup time and inter-controller latency. Furthermore, we propose a new model for flow setup time function that considers all affected metrics in the placement. To solve the framework, a multi-objective algorithm called non-dominated sorting moth flame controller placement optimizer is designed. To this end, we adapt the best–worst multi-criteria decision-making method considering three metrics, namely hop count, propagation latency and link utilization, to assign switches to controllers. A heuristic approach is also used to assign a path between switch and its controller using above three metrics and path reliability. We run theses three models iteratively to find the best location for controllers, the best switch assignment to controller and also find the best route in the network. We compare our proposed framework with other models using expected path loss and link load balancing metrics. Our performance evaluations on real wide area network topologies show the efficiency of the proposed framework.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.

References

  • Akyildiz IF, Lee A, Wang P, Luo M, Chou W (2014) A roadmap for traffic engineering in SDN-OpenFlow networks. Comput Netw 71:1–30

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bari MF, Roy AR, Chowdhury SR, Zhang Q, Zhani MF, Ahmed R, Boutaba R (2013) Dynamic controller provisioning in software defined networks. In: 9th International conference on network and service management (CNSM). IEEE, pp 18–25

  • Berde P, Gerola M, Hart J, Higuchi Y, Kobayashi M, Koide T et al (2014) ONOS: towards an open, distributed SDN OS. In: Proceedings of the third workshop on Hot topics in software defined networking. ACM, pp 1–6

  • Deb K, Agrawal S, Pratap A, Meyarivan T (2000) A fast elitist non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm for multi-objective optimization: NSGA-II. In: International conference on parallel problem solving from nature. Springer, Berlin, pp 849–858

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Gao C, Wang H, Zhu F, Zhai L, Yi S (2015) A particle swarm optimization algorithm for controller placement problem in software defined network. In: International conference on algorithms and architectures for parallel processing. Springer, pp 44–54

  • Gao X, Kong L, Li W, Liang W, Chen Y, Chen G (2017) Traffic load balancing schemes for devolved controllers in mega data centers. IEEE Trans Parallel Distrib Syst 28(2):572–585

    Google Scholar 

  • Glover F, Laguna M, Martí R (2000) Fundamentals of scatter search and path relinking. Control Cybern 29(3):653–684

    MathSciNet  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Hassas Yeganeh S, Ganjali Y (2012) Kandoo: a framework for efficient and scalable offloading of control applications. In: Proceedings of the first workshop on Hot topics in software defined networks. ACM, pp 19–24

  • He M, Basta A, Blenk A, Kellerer W (2017) Modeling flow setup time for controller placement in SDN: evaluation for dynamic flows. In IEEE international conference on communications (ICC). IEEE, pp 1–7

  • Heller B, Sherwood R, McKeown N (2012) The controller placement problem. In: Proceedings of the 1st workshop on Hot topics in software defined networks. ACM, pp 7–12

  • Hu Y, Wendong W, Gong X, Que X, Shiduan C (2013) Reliability-aware controller placement for software-defined networks. In: IFIP/IEEE international symposium on integrated network management (IM 2013). IEEE, pp 672–675

  • Hu Y, Wang W, Gong X, Que X, Cheng S (2014) On reliability-optimized controller placement for software-defined networks. China Commun 11(2):38–54

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jain S, Kumar A, Mandal S, Ong J, Poutievski L, Singh A et al (2013) B4: experience with a globally-deployed software defined WAN. ACM SIGCOMM Comput Commun Rev 43(4):3–14

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jalili A, Ahmadi V, Keshtgari M, Kazemi M (2015) Controller placement in software-defined WAN using multi objective genetic algorithm. In: 2nd International conference on knowledge-based engineering and innovation (KBEI), 2015. IEEE, pp 656–662

  • Jalili A, Keshtgari M, Akbari R (2017) Optimal controller placement in large scale software defined networks based on modified NSGA-II. Appl Intell 48:1–15

    Google Scholar 

  • Karakus M, Durresi A (2016) Quality of service (QoS) in software defined networking (SDN): a survey. J Netw Comput Appl 80:200–218

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kishore M (2003) Optimal link utilization and enhanced quality of service using dynamic bandwidth reservation for pre-recorded video (Doctoral dissertation, Virginia Tech)

  • Knight S, Nguyen HX, Falkner N, Bowden R, Roughan M (2011) The internet topology zoo. IEEE J Sel Areas Commun 29(9):1765–1775

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lange S, Gebert S, Zinner T, Tran-Gia P, Hock D, Jarschel M, Hoffmann M (2015a) Heuristic approaches to the controller placement problem in large scale SDN networks. IEEE Trans Netw Serv Manage 12(1):4–17

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lange S, Gebert S, Spoerhase J, Rygielski P, Zinner T, Kounev S, Tran-Gia P (2015) Specialized heuristics for the controller placement problem in large scale SDN networks. In: 27th International teletraffic congress (ITC 27). IEEE, pp 210–218

  • Liao J, Sun H, Wang J, Qi Q, Li K, Li T (2017) Density cluster based approach for controller placement problem in large-scale software defined networkings. Comput Netw 112:24–35

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mirjalili S (2015) Moth-flame optimization algorithm: a novel nature-inspired heuristic paradigm. Knowl. Based Syst. 89:228–249

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitra D, Sarkar S, Hati D (2016) A comparative study of routing protocols. Eng Sci 2(1):46–50

    Google Scholar 

  • Mohammadi R, Javidan R, Keshtgari M (2017) OpenIPTV: a comprehensive SDN-based IPTV service framework. Multimed Syst 24:1–13

    Google Scholar 

  • Oktian YE, Lee S, Lee H, Lam J (2017) Distributed SDN controller system: a survey on design choice. Comput Netw 121:100–111

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olson D (2004) Comparison of weights in TOPSIS models. Math Comput Model 40:721–727

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Opricovic S, Tzeng G-H (2004) Compromise solution by MCDM methods: a comparative analysis of VIKOR and TOPSIS. Eur J Oper Res 156:445–455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rath HK, Revoori V, Nadaf SM, Simha A (2014) Optimal controller placement in software defined networks (SDN) using a non-zero-sum game. In: IEEE 15th International Symposium on A world of wireless, mobile and multimedia networks (WoWMoM), 2014. IEEE, pp 1–6

  • Rezaei J (2016) Best-worst multi-criteria decision-making method: some properties and a linear model. Omega 64:126–130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ros FJ, Ruiz PM (2016) On reliable controller placements in software-defined networks. Comput Commun 77:41–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sahoo J, Salahuddin M, Glitho R, Elbiaze H, Ajib W (2016) A survey on replica server placement algorithms for content delivery networks. IEEE Commun Surv Tutor 19:1002–1006

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sahoo KS, Sarkar A, Mishra SK, Sahoo B, Puthal D, Obaidat MS, Sadun B (2017) Metaheuristic solutions for solving controller placement problem in SDN-based WAN architecture

  • Sallahi A, St-Hilaire M (2015) Optimal model for the controller placement problem in software defined networks. IEEE Commun Lett 19(1):30–33

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sallahi A, St-Hilaire M (2017) Expansion model for the controller placement problem in software defined networks. IEEE Commun Lett 21(2):274–277

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Savsani V, Tawhid MA (2017) Non-dominated sorting moth flame optimization (NS-MFO) for multi-objective problems. Eng Appl Artif Intell 63:20–32

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmid S, Suomela J (2013) Exploiting locality in distributed SDN control. In: Proceedings of the second ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Hot topics in software defined networking. ACM, pp 121–126

  • Song S, Park H, Choi BY, Choi T, Zhu H (2017) Control path management framework for enhancing software-defined network (SDN) reliability. IEEE Trans Netw Serv Manag 14:302–316

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tootoonchian A, Ganjali Y (2010) Hyperflow: a distributed control plane for openflow. In: Proceedings of the 2010 internet network management conference on research on enterprise networking, 2010, p 3

  • ul Huque MTI, Si W, Jourjon G, Gramoli V (2017) Large-scale dynamic controller placement. IEEE Trans Netw Serv Manag 14(1):63–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang G, Zhao Y, Huang J, Duan Q, Li J (2016) A K-means-based network partition algorithm for controller placement in software defined network. In: IEEE international conference on communications (ICC). IEEE, pp 1–6

  • Wang T, Liu F, Guo J, Xu H (2016) Dynamic SDN controller assignment in data center networks: stable matching with transfers. In: The 35th annual IEEE international conference on computer communications, IEEE INFOCOM 2016. IEEE, pp 1–9

  • Wang G, Zhao Y, Huang J, Wang W (2017a) The controller placement problem in software defined networking: a survey. IEEE Netw 31(5):21–27

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang CA, Hu B, Chen S, Li D, Liu B (2017b) A switch migration-based decision-making scheme for balancing load in SDN. IEEE Access 5:4537–4544

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xiao P, Li ZY, Guo S, Qi H, Qu WY, Yu HS (2016) AK self-adaptive SDN controller placement for wide area networks. Front Inf Technol Electron Eng 17:620–633

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yao G, Bi J, Li Y, Guo L (2014) On the capacitated controller placement problem in software defined networks. IEEE Commun Lett 18(8):1339–1342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yao L, Hong P, Zhang W, Li J, Ni D (2015) Controller placement and flow based dynamic management problem towards SDN. In: IEEE international conference on communication workshop (ICCW). IEEE, pp 363–368

  • Zeng D, Teng C, Gu L, Yao H, Liang Q (2015) Flow setup time aware minimum cost switch-controller association in Software-Defined Networks. In: 11th International conference on heterogeneous networking for quality, reliability, security and robustness (QSHINE). IEEE, pp 259–264

  • Zhang T, Giaccone P, Bianco A, De Domenico S (2017) The role of the inter-controller consensus in the placement of distributed SDN controllers. Comput Commun 113:1–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhong Q, Wang Y, Li W, Qiu X (2016) A min-cover based controller placement approach to build reliable control network in SDN. In: IEEE/IFIP network operations and management symposium (NOMS). IEEE, pp 481–487

  • Zitzler E, Deb K, Thiele L (2000) Comparison of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms: empirical results. Evol Comput 8(2):173–195

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Engineering and Information Technology, Gonbad Kavous University, Gonbad Kavous, Iran

    Ahmad Jalili

  2. Department of Computer Engineering and Information Technology, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz, Iran

    Manijeh Keshtgari & Reza Akbari

Authors
  1. Ahmad Jalili
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  2. Manijeh Keshtgari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

  3. Reza Akbari
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ahmad Jalili.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.

Additional information

Communicated by V. Loia.

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jalili, A., Keshtgari, M. & Akbari, R. A new framework for reliable control placement in software-defined networks based on multi-criteria clustering approach. Soft Comput 24, 2897–2916 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-019-04070-8

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00500-019-04070-8

Keywords