A Lightweight Scheme of Active-Port-Aware Monitoring in Software-Defined Networks

Software-defined networking (SDN) is the key technology to enable network softwarization by offering a programable and flexible network control capabilities. In order to dynamically manage and reconfigure the underlying network through SDN, network-based monitoring functionality needs to be in place. However, existing network monitoring schemes are normally heavyweight which can cause substantial monitoring overhead when dealing with entire network infrastructure and complex policies. Such a limitation can be critical in a software-based network system that enables the construction of multiple networks with various network policies designed by a network operator. In this article, we propose a new lightweight monitoring mechanism referred to as Active-port Aware Monitoring (APAM) in order to support the monitoring of complex networks with substantially reduced overhead. APAM typically monitors active ports which are the switch ports utilized by current flow rules. These active ports are dynamically monitored with reconfigurable monitoring intervals according to their port utilization. The measurement results show that APAM adapts varying traffic route due to a change of flow rules and also adjusts its monitoring performance according to network traffic dynamicity, which reduces the monitoring overhead and also improves monitoring accuracy.