Centralized Flat Routing

Flat Routing (FR) is a routing technique that routes packet according to a globally unique flat identity. Compared with traditional IP based routing, flat routing decouples host with its location, which provides built-in mobility support and eases network management. Besides, flat routing is also considered as a building block for next generation network architecture. Previous work on flat routing is through modifying network layer protocol or extending Ethernet network, but both of the methods are difficult to scale up. In this paper, a flat routing method based on centralized network architecture called CFR (Centralized Flat Routing) is proposed and analyzed. By connecting multiple commodity Ethernet networks through a SDN/OpenFlow network, a popular centralized architecture, we show it to be a scalable method through proof-of-concept experiment covering various scalability issues. At last, we introduce a prototype of a flat routing testbed based on NetFPGA1G OpenFlow switches and POX controller. Preliminary experiment result shows CFR work under realistic environment.