SDNaaS: Software-Defined Networking as an IXP Service

Network operators need to manage the full lifecycle of controller instance clusters to ensure a high-performance and reliable distributed control plane service for software-defined networks (SDN). However, setting up and configuring multiple controller instances is a resource-intensive and complex process. Outsourcing to a third-party provider may alleviate the challenges associated with managing and orchestrating hardware and software infrastructure required for operating a distributed SDN control plane. We present SDN-as-a-Service (SDNaaS), an Internet exchange point-based SDN control plane service provider. We analyzed public IXP datasets and show that these Internet infrastructures possess desirable characteristics for hosting mission-critical network services. By leveraging IXP strengths, and implementing techniques for coordinating disparate resources (aggregating capacity), compartmentalizing controller services (decoupling controller functions into distinct yet composable services), and client-side resource discovery (delegating controller selection to switches), SDNaaS can provide the capability for network operators to scale controller processing capacity by as much as 2.6x as compared to single site while concurrently enhancing system availability.