- Title
- Building a flexible and inexpensive multi-layer switch for software-defined networks
- Creator
- Magwenzi, Tinashe
- ThesisAdvisor
- Terzoli, Afredo
- ThesisAdvisor
- Tsietsi, Mosiuoa Jeremia
- Subject
- Software-defined networking (Computer network technology)
- Subject
- Telecommunication -- Switching systems
- Subject
- OpenFlow (Computer network protocol)
- Subject
- Local area networks (Computer networks)
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- text
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MSc
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142841
- Identifier
- vital:38122
- Description
- Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a paradigm which enables the realisation of programmable network through the separation of the control logic from the forwarding functions. This separation is a departure from the traditional architecture. Much of the work done in SDN enabled devices has concentrated on higher end, high speed networks (10s GBit/s 100s GBit/s), rather than the relatively low bandwidth links (10s MBit/s to a few GBit/s) which are seen, for example, in South Africa. As SDN is increasingly becoming more accepted, due to its advantages over the traditional networks, it has been adopted for industrial purposes such as networking in data centres and network providers. The demand for programmable networks is increasing but is limited by the ability of providers to upgrade their infrastructure. In addition, as access to the Internet has become less expensive, the use of Internet is increasing in academic institutions, NGOs, and small to medium enterprises. This thesis details a means of building and managing a small scale Software-Defined Network using commodity hardware and open source tools. Core to the SDN Network illustrated in this thesis is the prototype of a multi-layer SDN switch. The proposed device is targeted to serve lower bandwidth communication (in relation to commercially produced high speed SDN-enabled devices). The performance of the prototype multilayer switch had shown to achieve: data-rates of up to 99.998%, average latencies that are under 40µs during forwarding/switching and under 100µs during routing while using packet sizes between 64 bytes and 1518 bytes, and a jitter of less than 15µs during all tests. This research explores in detail the design, development, and management of a multi-layer switch and its placement and integration in small scale SDN network. This includes testing of Layer 2 forwarding and Layer 3 routing, OpenFlow compliance testing, the management of the switch using created SDN applications, and real life network functionality such as forwarding, routing and VLAN networking to demonstrate its real world applicability.
- Format
- 214 pages, pdf
- Publisher
- Rhodes University, Faculty of Science, Computer Science
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Magwenzi, Tinashe
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RU Department of Computer Science
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details | SOURCE1 | MAGWENZI-MSC-TR20-239.pdf | 4 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details |