An NFV-Based Framework for Autonomous Deployment of New Protocols in SDN Networks

Network programmability has always been a topic of interest to researchers. After introducing the concept of SDN, control-plane programmability is achieved. However, data-plane programmability remains a challenge in the context of network programmability. Several studies have attempted to deploy data plane programmability in different ways to accommodate and support arbitrary network protocols or to modify the currently supported protocols’ functions. P4 introduced flexible parsing of arbitrary protocol header fields using software-programmable switches. In this study, we propose an autonomous SDN-based framework that achieves the same goal of flexible parsing of arbitrary protocol header fields in real-time using software switches based on the NFV concept. We describe a method based on the proposed framework that makes it possible to add proprietary network protocols or modify and upgrade an existing protocol. We introduce a software switch architecture that can implement data plane programmability based on the proposed method. In this switch architecture, the switches need not be pre-programmed to be able to parse and process the packets rather the desired parsing of the arbitrary protocol header fields and actions for each match are automatically programmed into the switches as needed. A proof-of-concept implementation verifies the expected operation of the method and shows that the network can be autonomously programmed in real-time, and new or customized protocols, above the link layer, can be deployed without network operator involvement.