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Performance Analysis of SDN/OpenFlow Controllers: POX Versus Floodlight

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Abstract

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an emerging network architecture that is adaptable, dynamic, cost-effective, and manageable. The SDN architecture is a form of network virtualization where the network controlling functions and forwarding functions are decoupled. A setup and configuration task of a control plane to work as an SDN controller is explained in this paper. This paper includes a brief survey of different SDN based OpenFlow-enabled controllers available in various programmable languages. This paper mainly focuses on two OpenFlow-enabled controllers, namely, POX—a Python-based controller and Floodlight—a Java-based controller. A performance comparison of both controllers is tested over different network topologies by analyzing network throughput and round-trip delay using an efficient network simulator called Mininet. A single, linear, tree and custom (user-defined) topologies are designed in Mininet by enabling external controllers. It is obtained that, a percentage improvement in round-trip time for Floodlight over POX is 11.5, 13.9, 19.6 and 14.4% for single, linear, tree and custom topology respectively. Similarly, a percentage improvement in throughput for Floodlight over POX is 5.4, 8.9, 3.8 and 4.9% for single, linear, tree and custom topology respectively.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, S. V. National Institute of Technology, Surat, Gujarat, 395007, India

    Idris Z. Bholebawa & Upena D. Dalal

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  1. Idris Z. Bholebawa
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Correspondence to Idris Z. Bholebawa.

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Bholebawa, I.Z., Dalal, U.D. Performance Analysis of SDN/OpenFlow Controllers: POX Versus Floodlight. Wireless Pers Commun 98, 1679–1699 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-017-4939-z

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