SDN Wi-Fi Ad-hoc Mode Network
Overview
SDN Wi-Fi Ad-hoc simulation module is an optional add-on to EstiNet network simulator and emulator. It provides the simulation of an SDN mobile device that is equipped with two Wi-Fi interface cards – one is for the control plane and the other is for the data plane. An SDN mobile device can play the role of data forwarder (an agent) or routing-path arbitrator (a controller). No OpenFlow messaging is used in this kind of networks. Instead, a suite of control messages are defined to support the required SDN operations.
Key Features and Benefits
Support SDN Data Plane Forwarder
By using SDN-enabled mobile devices, users can simulate an SDN Wi-Fi ad-hoc network. The mobile device is equipped with two Wi-Fi interface cards. One is for transmitting/forwarding/receiving data packets on the data plane, the other is for communicating with the SDN-controller mobile device on the control plane. In addition, the mobile device maintains a routing table for storing the routing rules that are remotely set by the SDN controller.
Support SDN Data Plane Routing-path Arbitrato
An SDN-enabled mobile device can play the role of SDN controller. This controller has the global view of the mobile ad-hoc network and periodically monitors the dynamics of network topology. With this capability, an SDN-style (e.g., centralized) routing mechanism can be applied on the controller. In other words, the controller plays the role of routing-path arbitrator of ad-hoc network. Users are able to evaluate the feasibility and performance of SDN-style routing mechanism on this platform.
Major Functions for SDN Wi-Fi Network
SDN Operations
- Control Plane Network
- Ad-hoc Mode or Infrastructure Mode Wi-Fi Network
- Ad-hoc Mode Routing Protocol: AODV
- SDN Control Messages for Routing Operations
- Hello Message
- For Neighbor Discovery on Each Agent
- Neighbor Update Message
- From Agent to Controller
- Between Leader and Other Controllers
- Data Plane Routing Rule Update Message
- From Controller to Agent
- Hello Message
- Data Plane Network
- Ad-hoc Mode Only Wi-Fi Network
- Shortest Path Routing Protocol based on Dijkstra’s Algorithm Applied on Each Controller
Controller Backup Mechanism
- On each agent device, a list of controller device can be manually assigned. The first controller on the list is the default controller for an agent device, and the others are backup controllers.
- One controller shares its received neighbor update messages with other controllers through the Leader Controller. Thus, every controller has the global view of network and can be a backup for other controllers.
