TUNOS: A novel SDN-oriented networking operating system

Software defined networking (SDN) has been a promising network architecture to improve the openness of network and the diversity of protocols. Network operating system (NOS) in SDN is a key component for the abstraction of infrastructure and feature-rich protocols, which provide a general control plane and a unified protocol operating view. SDN-oriented NOS design requires not only the control shift from the specific network functions and vendor-dependent implementation in a traditional control plane to a general control functions, but also the extension of abstraction from computing process in a computer operating system to forwarding operation. To address this, we present a novel network operating system-TUNOS from the view of device control capacities and network control capacities. For the purpose of scalability, robustness, flexibility and high-performance, TUNOS provides open device management, cognitive network status, global network view, virtual forwarding space, and APP context management. General network control APIs are designed for user-friendly network programming.