Adaptive Load Balancing for Distributed Multi-Controller SDNs through Switch Migration Strategy
Allu Sudharshan Rao, Bipal Khanal, Md. Sarfaraj Alam Ansari · 2025
Software-defined networking (SDN) is a transformative technology that systematically centralises and manages network resources. This paradigm shift allows for greater flexibility, agility, and efficiency in network management. In the ever-evolving landscape of distributed software-defined networks, the escalating demand for cloud services and data traffic underscores the critical need for a sophisticated load-balancing scheme. This paper addresses the pivotal challenge of optimising resource utilisation in SDN controllers to mitigate bottlenecks, enhance responsiveness, and ensure efficient network operations. This paper proposes a switch migration algorithm for efficient load balancing in distributed multi-controller topology. The proposed framework uses resource utilisation, load balancing rate, and re-association time for performance measurement. The proposed algorithm considers the switch to controller distance and remaining processing capacity to select an immigration controller. It also minimizes re-association time in the process of switch migration. The proposed algorithms are compared with benchmark algorithms like ’Closest Switch Migration’ and ’Maximum Utilization Switch Migration’ using various performance metrics. It has shown promising results and outperforms the benchmark algorithms.