Topology-independent Software-Defined Edge Control for Scalable Ethernet DCN

Although Layer-2 networking meets the requirement of datacenter operators, it can not scale in the existing Ethernet Datacenter Network (DCN). In this paper, motivated by the backwards compatibility of OpenFlow with current commodity switches, we propose a topology-independent software-defined edge control framework, named FRINGE, which exploits the scalable capability for Ethernet DCN. FRINGE is able to leverage programmable OpenFlow switches deployed at the edge of DCN to intercept broadcast packets and achieve address aggregation through switch-based MAC address resolution. We implement the proposed framework in an SDN prototyping environment and validate it under typical DCN fabrics, where different types of workloads are applied. Evaluation results reveal that FRINGE is able to significantly reduce the total number of rules in all network devices, suppress broadcast packets and exploit redundant paths, which improves the scalability of Ethernet DCNs.