Traffic engineering approach to virtual-link provisioning in software-defined ISP networks

In this paper, we propose a new approach to virtual-link provisioning. Virtual-link implies the service of QoS-guaranteed data transfer between two points in ISP (Internet Service Provider) network. The approach relies on Software Defined Networking (SDN) architecture based on OpenFlow protocol, that allows highly granular traffic splitting across multiple paths. The traffic control logic of SDN controller is divided in offline and online component. The online component handles dynamic arrivals of virtual-link requests in accordance to Service Level Agreements (SLAs) requirements. The offline component is responsible for periodic optimization of traffic distribution in the network. In this way, we tend to increase acceptance ratio for virtual-link requests and minimize degradation of best-effort traffic in scalable manner. Simulation results show that the proposed method for virtual-link provisioning outperforms Multi Protocol Label Switching based solution.