Computer Networking › Section E · The network layer: control plane › Topic E.4
The SDN control plane
Generalised forwarding gave switches flexible match-plus-action tables. Someone still has to decide what goes in them. In software-defined networking that someone is a controller: software with a view of the whole network, running applications that program every switch.
In this topic
- Four features of SDN
- The controller's three layers
- Southbound messages
- Worked example: a new flow arrives
- Reacting to a failure
- Centralised traffic engineering
- Worked example: sharing two paths
- Challenges
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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