Software defined distributed cable networks: design and use cases

Cable networks have continuously evolved to enable new services and improve infrastructure capabilities. Cable networks have recently witnessed a shift from a centralized architecture to a distributed one to remain competitive by supporting higher data rates. This shift complicates the management and configuration of distributed network nodes in Distributed Access Architecture (DAA). Hence, the development of new solutions to overcome this challenge evolves as a crucial need for the success and economic deployment of DAA. In the meantime, Software Defined Networking (SDN) technology evolved as a novel networking paradigm that facilitates designing dynamic, cost-effective, agile, centrally manageable, and programmable network architectures. SDN segregates the data layer and control layer to enable the deployment of centrally optimized operation of distributed network nodes. This thesis focuses on developing a prototype for SDN-enabled DAA Cable Networks. Specifically, an SDN agent was integrated with a legacy DAA remote node to facilitate its communication with any SDN controller. Such integration enables network applications deployed on top of the SDN controller to define the forwarding behavior of these remote nodes. To illustrate this, two use cases, namely Load Balancing and Failure Management, were deployed in the Ryu controller. We validated the operation of these applications using a hybrid setup that includes one physical/industrial remote DAA node with the rest of the network emulated using the Mininet emulator. Additionally, we evaluate the performance of the proposed load balancing and compare it to the no-load balancing case using the web and video traffic. It’s clearly shown that load balancing shows up to 6.4% of a performance improvement for video bitrate without significantly impacting the web traffic. The developed prototype could act as a precursor for designing and deploying different use cases and the widespread adoption of SDN-based DAA networks.

Grantor dc:publisher

University College Cork

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Naithani, Sudhanshu

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Zahran, Ahmed
• Sreenan, Cormac J.

• Distributed Access Architecture (DAA)
• SDN (Software-Defined Networking)
• RMD (Remote Mac-Phy Device)
• Mininet
• Cable networks
• Load-balancing
• Failure management

Statement dc:rights

• © 2023, Sudhanshu Naithani.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10468/14579

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:cora.ucc.ie:10468/14579