Impacts of correlated failures in data plane and rule space occupation in Software-Defined Networking(SDN)

A key performance factor in networks is their reliability when their components face failures and challenges to maintain their normal operation. Although the networking equipments are becoming more reliable to failures, total elimination of failures in networks and in general in any physical system is not possible. Software Defined Networks (SDN) with a logically centralized controller architecture and programmable network elements introduce both new reliability challenges and new opportunities to enhance the reliability of networks. In this paper, we specifically focus on failures in the data plane of the network and present a provisioning and failure recovery mechanism with the goal of balancing the interplay between reducing the impacts of failures and optimizing flow tables at switches. Simulation results using Mininet for various random and correlated failure scenarios are presented and shows the performance of the mechanism in balancing the tradeoff.