Evolution and Challenges of Software Defined Networking

Software Defined Networking (SDN) proposes the separation of the control plane from the data plane in network nodes. Furthermore, Openflow architecture through a centralized control of the packet forwarding engines enables the network administrators to literally program the network behavior. The research and results of experiments show clear advantages over traditional network architectures. However, there are open questions to be solved in order to integrate SDN infrastructure and applications in production networks. This paper presents an analysis of the evolution of SDN in recent years. Additionally, this piece of work also describes some interesting SDN/Openflow research initiatives and applications. Finally, there is a disscussion on the main challenges of this new technology.