SDxVPN: A Software-Defined Solution for VPN Service Providers

摘要

BGP/MPLS IP VPN and VPLS services are considered to be widely used in IP/MPLSnetworks for connecting customers' remote sites. However, service providersstruggle with many challenges to provide these services. Management complexity,equipment costs, and last but not least, scalability issues emerging as thecustomers increase in number, are just some of these problems. Software-definednetworking (SDN) is an emerging paradigm that can solve aforementioned issuesusing a logically centralized controller for network devices. In this paper, wepropose a SDN-based solution called SDxVPN which considerably lowers thecomplexity of VPN service definition and management. Our method eliminatescomplex and costly device interactions that used to be done through severalcontrol plane protocols and enables customers to determine their servicespecifications, define restriction policies and even interconnect with othercustomers automatically without operator's intervention. We describe ourprototype implementation of SDxVPN and its scalability evaluations underseveral representative scenarios. The results indicate the effectiveness of theproposed solution for deployment to provide large scale VPN services.