Advancing Software-Defined Networks: A Survey

TLDR

Software‑defined networking promises centralized, cost‑effective control of distributed networks, enabling dynamic switch management and already adopted by major firms, yet it faces significant research and operational challenges that hinder widespread adoption. This survey aims to identify key challenges where researchers can contribute to advancing SDN and accelerate its broader adoption by network operators.

Abstract

Having gained momentum from its promise of centralized control over distributed network architectures at bargain costs, software-defined Networking (SDN) is an ever-increasing topic of research. SDN offers a simplified means to dynamically control multiple simple switches via a single controller program, which contrasts with current network infrastructures where individual network operators manage network devices individually. Already, SDN has realized some extraordinary use cases outside of academia with companies, such as Google, AT&T, Microsoft, and many others. However, SDN still presents many research and operational challenges for government, industry, and campus networks. Because of these challenges, many SDN solutions have developed in an ad hoc manner that are not easily adopted by other organizations. Hence, this paper seeks to identify some of the many challenges where new and current researchers can still contribute to the advancement of SDN and further hasten its broadening adoption by network operators.