A tutorial on software-defined networks emulation
Eiman Mohammed Alotaibi · Journal of Engineering Research · 2023
Due to the great dependency of cloud services on networking in supporting digital transformation, computer networks have become highly important in the modern civilization. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a relatively new networking paradigm where a central controller is added to the network to control and manage all network's devices such as routers, switches, and firewalls. This facilitates Network programmability, service innovation, agility, flexibility, and robustness. The open network operating system (ONOS) is a java based SDN operating system. A network topology consisting of various networking devices and links can be emulated in Mininet. The ONOS interacts with networking devices emulated in Mininet through the OpenFlow protocol. In this paper, we present a tutorial on setting up SDN emulation environment consisting of a topology implemented in Mininet and controlled by ONOS. Due to the lack of practical implementation steps in Mininet especially while integrated with ONOS, this emulation environment is crucial for evaluating the performance of networks software-based applications.