On Converged Multidomain Management of Connectivity in Heterogeneous Networks
04 July 2012
Today the Internet network consists of diverse layers and entities with overlapping functionalities and limited interworking capabilities. In this paper we develop a new concept for open connectivity services to cope with the complexity of multi-technology networks, especially with regard to control, management and algorithmic flexibility across layer-3 routing, layer-2 switching and even optical switching. We introduce a unifying central element in each network domain called the Dynamic Control Unit (DCU) that separates the control plane from the data plane by concentrating most of the control plane mechanisms and intelligence in one single entity. Moreover the DCU incorporates components for path computation and dynamic flow control to enforce the forwarding adjacencies in the switching or routing network. Additionally, the DCU provides intra-domain communication to the network elements in order to collect topological information and to react properly in case of failure. The persistency of the topology and resource information of the network is ensured by a traffic engineering database. The DCU also supports the inter-domain communication between several controllers. For experimentation purposes we followed an OpenFlow-like approach to realize a flexible and extensible test installation of the DCU networking concept. This enabled us to demonstrate intra- and inter-domain path computation and establishment concepts in a mixed environment of cooperating (layer2) switches and (layer3) routers, as it is common in the context of interconnectivity of large distributed data centers.
