Enabling Future Internet Architecture Research and Experimentation by Using Software Defined Networking

Internet core protocols were designed in the seventies and after four decades and a huge success, most of that initial design is still in place. As stated by Moore's law, current digital devices offer a huge processing capacity when compared to the computational resources of the early Internet. Moreover, physical links, wired or not, offer great connectivity and high throughput capacity. New applications bring a new set of requirements that the Internet is not able to satisfy in a proper way. The Internet architecture must be reviewed and several research groups are engaged in this design. Software Defined Networking (SDN), currently materialized in OpenFlow, represents an extraordinary opportunity to rethink computer networks, enabling the design and deployment of a future Internet. This paper presents SDN based technologies available, describes some research initiatives and discusses how the research community can use them to shape future Internet architecture.