Traditionally, networking equipments consists of proprietary switching hardware with embedded software. This not only made manageability of networks complex but also stymied innovation. SDN paradigm proposed to change this, primarily by separating networking software into data and control planes. The data plane's goal is to do switching in distributed hardware equipments. The control plane centrally governs what will be the switching rules at the data plane. As the control plane is separated from the switching hardware, it is easier to change its software, thereby speeding up software development cycle and in turn lowering the barrier for innovation. The separation of planes and centralization of control plane simplifies manageability of networks. In addition to these two benefits, SDN also facilitates network virtualization, which is a key enabler Cloud Computing. In this course, we will begin by getting familiarized to the aforementioned functions in the traditional networks. We will then learn how SDN changes the way networks will function now. We will look at open source technologies that enable deployment of SDN on real hardware and in simulation. We will see how all of networking functions, e.g. switching, routing, firewall, load balancers, and VPN, are instrumented in the new paradigm. We will explore SDN via lectures from the instructor, assignments, presentations of research papers by students, and a course project.
1. Students are able to use Mininet to simulate network.
2. Students are able to use controller-switch architecture.
3. Students are able to execute routing algorithm for SDN.
4. Studetns are able to create a firewall in SDN.
5. Students are able to design a data center in virtualized environment.