Emulation of SDN-supported automation networks

Software-defined networking (SDN) is a principle for the flexible configuration of networks, which recently has aroused an increasing interest of researchers and companies. Today, the operation and configuration of networks as well as their adaptation to changing requirements represent a major challenge if legacy network management protocols are used due to their inability to provide network-wide configuration. Compatibility issues with legacy protocols or even proprietary protocols have further contributed to hardly reconfigurable and inefficient networks and thus prepare the way for the new concept called SDN. SDN implementations are mainly in the data center today. Implementations will find their way into broader networking applications over the next few years. However, even automation networks with highest QoS requirements can benefit from SDN support by achieving significantly more devices that meet these requirements. Therefore, this paper addresses the emulation of SDN-supported automation networks to examine possible design options. Limitations and possibilities when using the popular and widely accepted SDN emulator Mininet are analyzed.