Wireless mesh over SDN

A Report Submitted
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Bachelor of Technology
in
Information Technology

by
Vaibhav Gaiha(20158083)
Naguboyina Sravya(20158088)
Subham Kumar(20158082)
Rajat Agrawal(20158037)
Akshita Singh(20158002)

to the
COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
MOTILAL NEHRU NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
ALLAHABAD
April, 2018
 UNDERTAKING

We declare that the work presented in this report ti-

tled “Wireless mesh over SDN”, submitted to the
Computer Science and Engineering Department, Motilal
Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, for
the award of the Bachelor of Technology degree in
Information Technology , is my original work. I have not
plagiarized or submitted the same work for the award of any
other degree. In case this undertaking is found incorrect, I
accept that my degree may be unconditionally withdrawn.

April, 2018
Allahabad
Vaibhav Gaiha(20158083)
Naguboyina
Sravya(20158088)
Subham Kumar(20158082)
Rajat Agrawal(20158037)
Akshita Singh(20158002)

ii
 CERTIFICATE

Certified that the work contained in the report titled “Wireless

mesh over SDN”, by 1 Vaibhav Gaiha(20158083),Naguboyina
Sravya(20158088),SubhamKumar(20158082),Rajat
Agrawal(20158037),Akshita Singh(20158002), has been carried
out under my supervision and that this work has not been
submitted elsewhere for a degree.

(Dr. Shashwati Banerjea)

Computer Science and Engineering Dept.
M.N.N.I.T, Allahabad

April, 2018

iii
Abstract

In this paper we propose to integrate Software Defined Networking (SDN) princi-

ples in Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) formed by OpenFlow switches. The use
of a centralized network controller and the ability to setup arbitrary paths for data
flows make SDN a handy tool to deploy fine-grained traffic engineering algorithms in
WMNs. However, centralized control may be harmful in multi-hop radio networks
formed by commodity devices (e.g. Wireless Community Networks), in which node
isolation and network fragmentation are not rare events. To exploit the pros and mit-
igate the cons, our framework uses the traditional OpenFlow centralized controller
to engineer the routing of data traffic, while it uses a distributed controller based
on route: i) OpenFlow control traffic, ii) data traffic, in case of central controller
failure. We implemented and tested our Wireless Mesh Software Defined Network
(wmSDN) showing its applicability to a traffic engineering use-case, in which the
controller logic balances outgoing traffic among the Internet gateways of the mesh.
Albeit simple, this use case allows showing a possible usage of SDN that improves
user performance with respect to the case of a traditional mesh with IP forwarding
and routing.

iv
Acknowledgements

We feel to acknowledge deep sense of gratitude to our guide Dr. Shashwati Banerjea,
whose valuable guidance and kind supervision given to us throughout the project;
shaped the present work as its show. Her advise and critics are source of innovative
ideas, inspiration and causes behind the success of this dissertation. The confidence
shown on us by her was the biggest source of inspiration. We would also like to
thank Mr. Shabir Ali for encouraging us. It was because of his help and support
this project has been duly completed.
We perceive this opportunity as a big milestone in our career development. We
will strive to use the gained skills and knowledge in the best way possible and we
will continue to work on their improvement. We hope to continue cooperation with
all of you in the future.

v
Contents

Abstract iv

Acknowledgements v

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 Bandwidth Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.2 Improved security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.3 Creating public safety networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.4 Creating smart cities and university campuses . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.1 Network failure in cases of controlling point failure . . . . . . 4
1.3.2 Enormous change in the network architecture and problems
in the implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.3 Congestion within the Shared Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3.4 Massive heterogeneous data processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Related Work 6
2.1 SDN as load balancer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 FlowScale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.3 FloodLight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.4 Indigo v-1/2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

vi
3 Proposed Work 8
3.1 Creating the topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2 Connection of mesh points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.3 Connecting the topology with SDN controller and analysis . . . . . . 10

4 Experimental Setup and Results Analysis 12

4.1 Software tools used . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.1.1 Mininet-Wifi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.1.2 Floodlight Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.2 Result Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.1 Topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.2 Controller setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
4.2.3 Connected topology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

5 Conclusion and Future Work 14

5.1 Reduced processing load on cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.2 SDN future of IoT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
5.3 Fault tolerance in SDN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

References 16

vii
Chapter 1

Introduction

In this era of technological advancement, its hard to respond to threats we cant see,
hear or touch, such as pollution of air and water, or toxic chemicals in products
we buy. Sophisticated, inexpensive sensors are making the invisible visible, and
have the potential to help solve tough environmental challenges. Sensors have been
proven a boon to mankind starting from illuminating the cause of acid rain back
in 1980s to the mapping of air pollution with mobile sensors in 2017. There are
countless other examples of sensor technology in the works that can help solve a
host of environmental challenges.
As the cloud continues to expand, it’s taken a lot of forms. One of the new ap-
plications that will be closely related to cloud technologies is the Internet of Things.
In the world of Internet of Things, sensors are the backbone of the interface between
the user and the multitudes of devices that surround us, such as smartphones, wear-
ables, robots, and drones. IoT is about data collection and processing from a much
larger range of simple devices or sensors that communicate specific data to a cen-
tralized or semi-centralized collection point, and can receive simple commands back
from that central source.
The idea of internet of things (IoT) was developed in parallel to WSNs(Wireless
Sensor Networks). A WSN can generally be described as a network of nodes that
cooperatively sense and may control the environment, enabling interaction between
persons or computers and the surrounding environment. The development of WSNs

1
was inspired by military applications, notably surveillance in conflict zones. Today,
they consist of distributed independent devices that use sensors to monitor the
physical conditions with their applications extended to industrial infrastructure,
automation, health, traffic, and many consumer areas.

1.1 Problem Statement

Software-defined networking (SDN) technology is a novel approach to cloud comput-
ing that facilitates network management and monitoring. SDN suggests to centralize
network intelligence in one network component by decoupling the forwarding process
of network packets (Data Plane) from the routing process (Control plane).
A wireless ad-hoc network consists of a collection of autonomous nodes or ter-
minals which communicate among themselves and form multi-hop radio networks
maintaining connection in a decentralized manner. Communications are evolving
more and more in the direction of ad-hoc networks. The reason why these networks
are gaining ground is because they do not require a well-defined infrastructure (base
stations, routers, cables) and can be reconfigured at any time, adding or eliminating
terminals or nodes (sensors, user terminals).
Inspired by all these great inventions we are creating an ad-hoc network in which
the SDN Controller, that follows the OpenFlow protocol, called Floodlight is used.
We are using cluster formation in wireless mesh networks that simplifies the mainte-
nance of the entire network and allows the usage of centralized routing algorithms.
The defining factors in choosing the routing algorithm is the type of the network
(MANET or WSN) and the node density.

1.2 Applications
There are several applications of wireless mesh over SDN.It forms the network in-
frastructure for WSNs over which application are being developed. The applications
comprise of:

2
1.2.1 Bandwidth Management
Through SDN applications, operators can use bandwidth management to ensure end
users receive optimal browsing and online video watching experiences. These SDN
applications can monitor the bandwidth requirements then provision user flows to
match the bandwidth and latency requirements of the Layer 7 application. This
application-aware approach to bandwidth management will ensure a better user
experience through better video playback with zero buffering.

1.2.2 Improved security

Moving to SDN can deliver security solutions that react immediately to threats
right at their source, and can automate user access control and quarantining. The
combination of effective internal network traffic analysis, with direct software control
of both the wired and wireless access layers of the network, enables rapid threat
detection and immediate threat quarantining, by disconnecting network access at
the threats source on a packet by packet basis.

1.2.3 Creating public safety networks

Public safety agencies manage many events in which they need to ensure services
and safety to the public. The services provided may be pre-planned as in the cases
of events like Kumbh Mela, etc or emergencies like earthquake where these ad-hoc
networks need to be set up and managed centrally. This is possible in the best way
by the use of SDN and wireless mesh networks created by sensors.

1.2.4 Creating smart cities and university campuses

We need large applications of IoT in order to create smart cities and university
campus. Also, in order to manage the data flows and routing we need the quick
decision making which is possible by the use and applications of SDN.

3
1.3 Challenges
The SDN is a new concept and is still under development.The resources are not fully
available and multiple challenges lie in front.Some of teh challenges that need to be
confronted are:

1.3.1 Network failure in cases of controlling point failure

The worst problem that we are going to face is the case of controlling point failure.
In this case, the flows will not be updated and routing tables will remain unchanged.
Also, the decision making will be a problem leading to the failure of the complete
network system.

1.3.2 Enormous change in the network architecture and prob-

lems in the implementation
The application of SDN to the current network is not at all easy as the core devices
used like the routers and switches are to be changed in the way they work. As
already stated, the control and data planes need to be decoupled which means a
huge change in the underlying network architecture which is a very tough job to do.

1.3.3 Congestion within the Shared Medium

Irrespective of the monitoring of information, the rules that helps routing of data
traffic is another major contribution of control traffic. As rules are generated to serve
the data traffic, the data traffic can get transmitted only after the corresponding
control traffic are transmitted successfully. That is, control traffic is more important
than data traffic. An efficient SD-WMN system should provide higher priority to
control traffic than to data traffic. It can be seen that, compared to the traditional
WMN, more control traffic exists in the network, and it competes with data traffic
for radio resource in an SD-WMN. Therefore, it is possible that the control traffic is
congested with data traffic in busy connection links, which incurs a long latency of
control traffic and results in inconsistent controlling logics in SDN-enabled networks.

4
1.3.4 Massive heterogeneous data processing
With the large-scale application of WSN technology in the information and intelli-
gence process of infrastructures[3], the amount of data produced by WSN sensors
will grow from todays EB level (1 018 bytes) to ZB (1 021 bytes) level. According
to IDC statistics and forecasts, in 2009, the global data volume was 0.8 ZB (1 021
bytes), and will be 35 ZB by 2020. As a major part of the data,the amount of sens-
ing data from the physical world is 30 times more than that from human society.
In this sense, the storage and transmission as well as timely treatment of mass data
will be an unprecedented challenge.

5
Chapter 2

Related Work

Today, smart grid, smart homes, smart water networks, intelligent transportation,
are infrastructure systems that connect our world more than we ever thought pos-
sible.

2.1 SDN as load balancer

A paper[1] on SDN as load balancer has provided algorithm for dynamic flow table
design which is based on ”single flow table” and ”group flow table” combination.
”Single flow table” can accurately monitor traffic of each client, ”Group flow table”
can effectively category client hosts. This algorithm does not only effectively avoid
excessive number of flow tables, and better solve the defect that flow table matching
range is too wide, experiments show that the algorithm has good feasibility and
higher traffic scheduling performance of network.

2.2 FlowScale
This is a successful application based on SDN. FlowScale is a project to divide and
distribute traffic over multiple physical switch ports. It replicates the functionality in
load balancing appliances but using a Top of Rack (ToR) switch to distribute traffic.
Using software to handle the control plane specification but switch hardware to do

6
the forwarding gives both great flexibility and allows for low cost, high throughput
deployments.

2.3 FloodLight
Floodlight is not just an OpenFlow controller. Floodlight is an OpenFlow con-
troller (the ”Floodlight Controller”) AND a collection of applications built on top
the Floodlight Controller.It realizes a set of common functionalities to control and
inquire an OpenFlow network, while applications on top of it realize different fea-
tures to solve different user needs over the network. This application has been used
in our project for implementing it.

2.4 Indigo v-1/2

This is still under development and is a collection of modules related to programming
OpenFlow switches and controllers.

7
Chapter 3

Proposed Work

A mesh network is a local network topology in which the infrastructure nodes (i.e.
bridges, switches and other infrastructure devices) connect directly, dynamically
and non-hierarchically to as many other nodes as possible and cooperate with one
another to efficiently route data from/to clients. This lack of dependency on one
node allows for every node to participate in the relay of information. Mesh networks
dynamically self-organize and self-configure, which can reduce installation overhead.
The ability to self-configure enables dynamic distribution of workloads, particularly
in the event that a few nodes should fail. This in turn contributes to fault-tolerance
and reduced maintenance costs.
Floodlight Controller is an SDN Controller offered by Big Switch Networks that
works with the OpenFlow protocol to orchestrate traffic flows in a software-defined
networking (SDN) environment. OpenFlow is one of the first and most widely used
SDN standards; it defines the open communications protocol in an SDN environment
that allows the SDN Controller (brains of the network) to speak to the forwarding
plane (switches, routers, etc.) to make changes to the network.
The SDN Controller is responsible for maintaining all of the network rules and
providing the necessary instructions to the underlying infrastructure on how traffic
should be handled. This enables businesses to better adapt to their changing needs
and have better control over their networks. The Floodlight Controller can be ad-
vantageous for developers, because it offers them the ability to easily adapt software

8
and develop applications and is written in Java. Included are representational state
transfer application program interfaces (REST APIs) that make it easier to program
interface with the product, and the Floodlight website offers coding examples that
aid developers in building the product.
We aimed to create the ad-hoc network that includes multiple clusters and
topologies that are interconnected in the form of a mesh network.This will from
a test bed for the SDN applications that are intended to be developed in rhe fu-
ture. We , thus create a virtual network using an emulator that also decreases the
required infrastructure for the development of future technologies. Then we control
and modify the network using a OpenFlow controller(FloodLight) using which we
can add flows and routes in the network. Thus, we intended to create the complete
setup based on which the IoT and SDN applications may be implemented.

3.1 Creating the topology

We created the mesh topology using the Mininet-wifi emulator.There were several
nodes that were connected to the switches which were connected in mesh network
with each other.In this way, multilple clusters were formed. The created topology
is as shown in image below:

9
3.2 Connection of mesh points
The topology were created on separate virtual boxes on the different systems. These
topology formed clusters and in order to connect these clusters in the form of the
mesh, we needed to connect these virtual boxes to each other in the mesh topology.
IN order to do so, we used mesh connection capable interfaces and used them to
make mesh points.

3.3 Connecting the topology with SDN controller

and analysis
The topology which was created was connected with the FloodLight Controller and
the topology was managed. The flows were managed and the activities and topol-
ogy was analysed.The topology as seen by the controller is shown in the image below:

10
11
Chapter 4

Experimental Setup and Results

Analysis

4.1 Software tools used

4.1.1 Mininet-Wifi
Mininet wifi is an emulator that helps us to create networks and create virtual
topologies.Hence, in order to create a wireless adhoc mesh network topology we are
using Mininet-Wifi. It is a fork of the Mininet SDN network emulator. The Mininet-
WiFi developers extended the functionality of Mininet by adding virtualized WiFi
stations and access points based on the standard Linux wireless drivers and the
80211 hwsim wireless simulation driver. They also added classes to support the
addition of these wireless devices in a Mininet network scenario and to emulate the
attributes of a mobile station such as position and movement relative to the access
points.This also allows us to create mobile devices i.e. nodes that help us to make
scenarios more realistic as the nodes may be mobile in the real implementations.

4.1.2 Floodlight Controller

Floodlight Controller is an SDN Controller offered by Big Switch Networks that
works with the OpenFlow protocol to orchestrate traffic flows in a software-defined

12
networking (SDN) environment. OpenFlow is one of the first and most widely used
SDN standards; it defines the open communications protocol in an SDN environment
that allows the SDN Controller (brains of the network) to speak to the forwarding
plane (switches, routers, etc.) to make changes to the network. The SDN Controller
is responsible for maintaining all of the network rules and providing the necessary
instructions to the underlying infrastructure on how traffic should be handled. This
enables businesses to better adapt to their changing needs and have better control
over their networks.

4.2 Result Analysis

4.2.1 Topology
Here, the mesh topology has been created but they may be changed as per the
requirements. However, the mesh networks are used for the application in IoT and
will be useful in those. The topology shows how the nodes un the network are
created. This will form the test bed for multiple applications that will be created.

4.2.2 Controller setup

The controller is the part that brings in the properties of SDN in light in this project.
The flows and routes can be controlled and forwarded by this centralized FloodLight
Controller running on another system. In the UI of this controller, we can see and
manage the topologies and also see the flows. Thus, it helps to manage the network
in the SDN.

4.2.3 Connected topology

This makes the setup realistic and large sized hence giving the resources that anyone
requires for the testing and working of the applications developed on IoT or SDN.
Thus, we created the wireless ad-hoc network controlled by the FloodLight Con-
troller and connected nodes on the mesh topology. We also analysed the network
on the controller and managed it.

13
Chapter 5

Conclusion and Future Work

Hence, we successfully created the desired mesh topology in an ad-hoc network and
achieved the properties of SDN by connecting and managing the network by the
controller.This work will surely help in the future advancements and developments
in the fields of SDN and IoT.

5.1 Reduced processing load on cloud

A runtime environment can be created on the nodes of the network and can be used
to process the required information based on current needs.Tools like docker will
help in creating the runtime environment whereas the SDN controllers will route
the data and instructions to the idle nodes ,these nodes in-turn will process the
data and reply with the results.This will reduce the response time of the network
and also make full use of hardware capability of nodes in the network and will lead
to reduced processing on the centralized servers

5.2 SDN future of IoT

IoT devices will be a long distance away from the servers that collect and process
their data, particularly since current network designs usually place these servers at
the center of the network. This will impact data transmission latency. Servers will

14
need to be brought closer to the edge of the network, but this increases network
complexity[4]. SDN makes it possible to overcome network complexity and improve
latency by taking advantage of the network management tools provided by SDN to
optimize network. Where manually configuring hardware devices on a network will
be costly , an SDN can be used to adapt to network changes far more quickly.

5.3 Fault tolerance in SDN

Software-defined networking (SDN) offers[2] greater flexibility than traditional dis-
tributed architectures, at the risk of the controller being a single point-of-failure
¿Many innovations are being done to avoid this risk involved in SDN . Ravana, a
fault-tolerant SDN controller platform that processes the control messages transac-
tionally and exactly once . Ravana maintains these guarantees in the face of both
controller and switch crashes.Ravana is still under development and is the future of
a fault tolerant Software Defined Network.

15
References

[1] Faaiz S. Fizi, Shavan Askar, ”A novel load balancing algorithm for software
defined network based datacenters”, Broadband Communications for Next Gener-
ation Networks and Multimedia Applications (CoBCom) International Conference
on, pp. 1-6, 2016
[2] Fabian Kurtz, Christian Wietfeld, ”Advanced controller resiliency in software-
defined networking enabled critical infrastructure communications”, Information
and Communication Technology Convergence (ICTC) 2017 International Confer-
ence on, pp. 673-678, 2017
[3] Zhiming Ding, Limin Guo, Qi Yang, ”RDB-KV: A Cloud Database Frame-
work for Managing Massive Heterogeneous Sensor Stream Data”, Intelligent System
Design and Engineering Application (ISDEA) 2012 Second International Conference
on, pp. 653-656, 2012
[4] Ahmet Cihat Baktir, Atay Ozgovde, Cem Ersoy, ”How Can Edge Computing
Benefit From Software-Defined Networking: A Survey Use Cases and Future Direc-
tions”, Communications Surveys Tutorials IEEE, vol. 19, pp. 2359-2391, 2017,
ISSN 1553-877X.

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