Performance Analysis of Ryu-POX Controller in Different Tree-Based SDN Topologies

Abstract

Next generation networking architecture is required to be reliable, scalable, flexible, secure and has otheradvanced features. Traditional TCPIP networks are complexand cannot meet the requirements for high-quality networkservices. Software Defined Network (SDN) is an importanttechnology that enables a completely new approach in how wedevelop and manage networks. SDN divides the data plane andcontrol plane and promotes logical centralization of networkcontrol so that the controller can schedule the data in thenetwork effectively through OpenFlow protocol. In this paper,we simulate the two SDN controllers of Ryu and POX, andcompare their latency and throughput performance underSimple-Tree-Based (STB) and Fat-Tree-Based (FTB) networktopologies. An SDN networking model has been designed usinga Mininet emulator, and the code for custom STB/FTBtopology is executed in Python script. Simulation outcomesindicate that in latency mode Ryu controller exhibited betterresults than POX controller, making it more suitable for smallscaleSDN deployments. From the throughput simulation, POXcontroller displayed better results than Ryu, showing that it isable to respond to requests more promptly under complex FTBtraffic loads, but with more hardware resources utilization