Dynamic Link Aggregation in Software Defined Networking
Ronaldo Resende Rocha, Marcos A. M. Vieira, Antônio A. F. Loureiro · 2018
The link aggregation technique not only provides robustness to computer networks, but can also be a solution to the link saturation problem. This technique combines several physical interfaces to create a virtual link, adding up their existing bandwidth. In addition to increasing the throughput for data transmission, such a technique provides a quick and transparent recovery if a particular link becomes unavailable. Considering that the use of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) in business environments increases every day, this research presents a way to create link aggregations in such environments. This brings a better availability of services, among other benefits. To do so, an architecture that allows automatic, scalable and self-adaptive link aggregations was defined and implemented. As a way of evaluating such implementation, three algorithms were created using different premises: Hash Table, Traffic Analysis and Virtual Round-Robin. All implementations were tested in virtual and real environments. In both, the Open vSwitch open platform was used for packet switching and the Ryu controller was chosen to control the switches.