Exploitation of SDN for Gateway Diversity in High-Throughput Satellite Networks

Incorporating Software-Defined Networking (SDN) into satellite communications offers the potential for a range of advantageous outcomes, including increased flexibility, programmability, and logical centralization. These benefits contribute to enhanced network resource utilization, simplified network management, reduced operating costs, and the promotion of evolution and innovation within the SatCom domain. This paper delves into the concept of gateway diversity within a satellite environment, leveraging the employment of open-source SDN controllers OpenDaylight and ONOS with Mininet and OpenSAND. Specifically, the SDN controller is employed to facilitate efficient real-time traffic switching between two gateways. We also compare the performance of ODL and ONOS in achieving this switchover in real-time. Furthermore, the study examines the methodology for enabling the automatic instantiation of the gateway and the timely restart of the OpenSAND simulation process. Finally, the obtained simulation results are presented to evaluate the efficacy of these technologies and to present a clear comparison between the controllers in terms of switching time.