Feature-based comparison and selection of Software Defined Networking (SDN) controllers

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is seen as one way to solve some problems of the Internet including security, managing complexity, multi-casting, load balancing, and energy efficiency. SDN is an architectural paradigm that separates the control plane of a networking device (e.g., a switch / router) from its data plane, making it feasible to control, monitor, and manage a network from a centralized node (the SDN controller). However, today there exists many SDN controllers including POX, FloodLight, and OpenDaylight. The question is, which of the controllers is to be selected and used? To find out the answer to this question, a decision making template is proposed in this paper to help researchers choose the SDN controller that best fits their needs. The method works as follows; first, several existing open-source controllers are analyzed to collect their properties. For selecting the suitable controller based on the derived requirements (for example, a “Java” interface must be provided by the controller), a matching mechanism is used to compare the properties of the controllers with the requirements. Additionally, for selecting the best controller based on optional requirements (for example, GUI will be extremely preferred over the age of the controller), a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method named Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) has been adapted by a monotonic interpolation / extrapolation mechanism which maps the values of the properties to a value in a pre-defined scale. By using the adapted AHP, the topmost five controllers have been compared and “Ryu” is selected to be the best controller based on our requirements.