Self-configuring real-time communication network based on OpenFlow

摘要

One of the major tasks when deploying real-time Ethernet networks is their configuration to achieve real-time behavior. In this paper we present an approach for a self-configuring plug-n-play network that automatically sets up devices and offers hard real-time guarantees to such devices. A new architecture and a protocol based on OpenFlow are proposed to achieve a system that can react to failures of switches and links by trying to repair such failures on a network level and restoring a full redundancy level while maintaining hard real-time guarantees. Implementation details are explained and the architecture is evaluated against randomly generated topologies. It is shown, that the solution can achieve a seamless failure recovery in link failures without any complexity at the end-device side.