Towards carrier grade SDNs

Driven by the expected benefits, SDN techniques prepare to dare the leap from datacenter and small area networks to larger networks. SDN becomes more and more interesting in ISP networks, where new concerns about scalability, resilience and legacy functionality arise. Therefore, we analyze RouteFlow, a promising approach to SDN, that allows to gradually transition from conventional networks to SDNs. Based on the requirements for future ISP networks, we perform an experimental case study to validate the applicability of SDN techniques in carrier grade networks.