Experimental Evaluation of a Multi-Domain Routing in SDN and its Inter-operability with Legacy Networks

Legacy IPv4 networks are strenuous to manage and operate. Network operators are in need to minimize the capital and operational expenditure of running network infrastructure. The implementation of Software-defined networking (SDN) addresses these issues by minimizing the expenditure in the long run. Legacy networks need to integrate with the SDN networks for the migration towards the fully functional SDN environment. In this paper, we compare the network performance of the legacy network with SDN for IP routing in order to determine the feasibility of an SDN deployment for the Internet service provider (ISP) network. The simulation of the network is performed in the Mininet test-bed and the network traffic is generated using distributed Internet traffic generator. Open network operating system is used as a controller in SDN environment in which SDN-IP application is running for IP routing. Round trip time, bandwidth, and packet transmission rate from both of these networks are first collected and then the comparison is done. We found that SDN-IP provides better bandwidth and latency compared to legacy routing. The experimental analysis of interoperability between SDN and legacy network shows that SDN implementation in production level carrier-grade ISP network is viable and progressive.