Open flow-based monitoring In IXP manager using SDN controller

Abstract

Measuring the performance of a network is not a new domain and there has been a lot of research done on how to improve the performance of a network. The performance of a network cannot be improved unless we monitor the network itself. In that context OpenFlow based monitoring in the SDN-IXP manager using the SDN (Software Defined Networking) controller is a novel approach to manage and monitor IXP (Internet Exchange Point). The IXP acts as a local transit point for different ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and content providers. This approach helps in reducing the financial burden by lowering the cost of transit point and network's operation. The said approach also improves system efficiency with better control, reduces latency by direct connections, and ensures security of the data by keeping traffic in a local network. SDN provides central network monitoring by keeping eye on the whole network, traffic engineering can also be leveraged by using network programmability for applications like centralized device configurations, load balancing, firewall and traffic optimization in the network. The SDN technology has benefits in diverse industries and one of those is IXP. This thesis proposes a novel Laravel based management framework for redesigned IXP-Manager to monitor flow counters between the SDN controller and OpenFlow Switch through Grafana Platform. The latter is used to show stats after getting data from the database and then a user interface is added to the IXP manager dashboard using redirection. The proposed approach allows SDN IXP Manager to define rules and establish peering between different ISPs in an IXP environment by passing data from SDN-IXP manager to SDN-Controller's YAML file directly.