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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kumar, Puneet, Dezfouli, Behnam
Format: Preprint
Published: 2021
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.08336
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author Kumar, Puneet
Dezfouli, Behnam
author_facet Kumar, Puneet
Dezfouli, Behnam
contents In Software-Defined Networks (SDNs), the control plane and data plane communicate for various purposes, such as applying configurations and collecting statistical data. While various methods have been proposed to reduce the overhead and enhance the scalability of SDNs, the impact of the transport layer protocol used for southbound communication has not been investigated. Existing SDNs rely on TCP (and TLS) to enforce reliability and security. In this paper, we show that the use of TCP imposes a considerable overhead on southbound communication, identify the causes of this overhead, and demonstrate how replacing TCP with QUIC can enhance the performance of this communication. We introduce the quicSDN architecture, enabling southbound communication in SDNs via the QUIC protocol. We present a reference architecture based on the standard, most widely used protocols by the SDN community and show how the controller and switch are revamped to facilitate this transition. We compare, both analytically and empirically, the performance of quicSDN versus the traditional SDN architecture and confirm the superior performance of quicSDN.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2107_08336
institution arXiv
publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle QuicSDN: Transitioning from TCP to QUIC for Southbound Communication in SDNs
Kumar, Puneet
Dezfouli, Behnam
Networking and Internet Architecture
In Software-Defined Networks (SDNs), the control plane and data plane communicate for various purposes, such as applying configurations and collecting statistical data. While various methods have been proposed to reduce the overhead and enhance the scalability of SDNs, the impact of the transport layer protocol used for southbound communication has not been investigated. Existing SDNs rely on TCP (and TLS) to enforce reliability and security. In this paper, we show that the use of TCP imposes a considerable overhead on southbound communication, identify the causes of this overhead, and demonstrate how replacing TCP with QUIC can enhance the performance of this communication. We introduce the quicSDN architecture, enabling southbound communication in SDNs via the QUIC protocol. We present a reference architecture based on the standard, most widely used protocols by the SDN community and show how the controller and switch are revamped to facilitate this transition. We compare, both analytically and empirically, the performance of quicSDN versus the traditional SDN architecture and confirm the superior performance of quicSDN.
title QuicSDN: Transitioning from TCP to QUIC for Southbound Communication in SDNs
topic Networking and Internet Architecture
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2107.08336