Performance analysis of OpenFlow forwarders based on routing granularity in OpenFlow 1.0 and 1.3

Software-defined networking is alternative approach to traditional switched networks where each switch and router makes its own forwarding decisions. Software-defined networking uses centralized controller making decision with multiple forwarders applying received rules. In this paper we analyze the performance impact of using micro and macro flows in software-defined networking and performance impact of OpenFlow version used. Our results quantify overhead when matching of flows on second to fourth layer of OSI model compared to matching on second layer only.