Unifying Packet and Circuit Switched Networks

Abstract

There have been many attempts to unify the control and management of circuit and packet switched networks, but none have taken hold. In this paper we propose a simple way to unify both types of network using OpenFlow. The basic idea is that a simple flow abstraction fits well with both types of network, provides a common paradigm for control, and makes it easy to insert new functionality into the network. OpenFlow provides a common API to the underlying hardware, and allows all of the routing, control and management to be defined in software outside the datapath.