FORTIFY: Software Defined Data Plane Resilience

Umar Farooq, Mubashir Anwar, Haris Noor, Rashid Tahir, Santhosh Prabhu, Ali Kheradmand, Matthew Caesar, Fareed Zaffar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Given the scale and mission-critical nature of production networks today, it is essential to solidify their resilience to link failures. Building this resilience in each application separately is not scalable. In order to minimize downtime, at least some degree of resilience should be built directly into the data plane. Fast Failover groups in OpenFlow offer a mechanism to achieve this, but programming them introduces additional complexity to the existing arduous task of developing an SDN controller application. In this paper, we discuss how this complexity can be decoupled from the controller implementation. We introduce FORTIFY, a transparent resiliency layer that incorporates data plane fault tolerance into any existing controller application without any modification to it. FORTIFY operates as a shim layer between the controller and the data plane, and dynamically transforms the data plane rules computed by the controller to use Fast Failover groups. FORTIFY can be used off-The-shelf, or customized programmatically to choose specific types of backup paths. Experimental results collected on a production testbed demonstrate that FORTIFY is a practical, high-performance solution to data plane fault tolerance in SDNs.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication2022 IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks, NFV-SDN 2022 - Proceedings
EditorsLarry Horner, Kurt Tutschku, Carlos Jesus Bernados Cano, Riccardo Bassoli, Flavio Esposito, Tobias Meuser, Roman-Valentyn Tkachuk
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages6-12
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9781665473347
DOIs
StatePublished - 2022
Externally publishedYes
Event2022 IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks, NFV-SDN 2022 - Chandler, United States
Duration: Nov 14 2022Nov 16 2022

Publication series

Name2022 IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks, NFV-SDN 2022 - Proceedings

Conference

Conference2022 IEEE Conference on Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networks, NFV-SDN 2022
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityChandler
Period11/14/2211/16/22

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Software
  • Information Systems and Management
  • Control and Optimization
  • Modeling and Simulation

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