Optimizing the resource utilization of datacenter networks with OpenFlow

Decreasing the flow completion time (FCT) and increasing the throughput are two fundamental targets in datacenter networks (DCNs), but current mechanisms mostly focus on one of the problems. In this paper, we propose OFMPC, an OpenFlow based MultiPath Cooperation framework, to decrease FCT and increase the network throughput. OFMPC partitions the end-to-end transmission paths into two classes, which are low delay paths (LDPs) and high throughput paths (HTPs), respectively. Short flows are assigned to LDPs to avoid long queueing delay, while long flows are assigned to HTPs to guarantee their throughput. Meanwhile, a dynamic scheduling mechanism is presented to improve network efficiency. We evaluate OFMPC in Mininet emulator and a testbed, and the experimental results show that OFMPC can effectively decrease FCT. Besides, OFMPC also increases the throughput up to more than 84% of bisection bandwidth.