SDN2

SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKS DAY 2

LET’S HAVE A
REVIEW
GOALS

▪ Explain the difference between

control and data plane.
▪ Produce examples of functions
provided by each plane.
▪ Identify opportunities and challenges
in separating the data and control
planes
▪ Routing Control Platform
▪ Describe the 4D Network Architecture
EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
CONTROL AND DATA PLANE.
CONTROL PLANE
• Refers to all the functions and processes
that determine which path to use to
send the packet or frame

DATA PLANE
• Refers to all the functions and processes
that forward packets/frames from one
interface to another based on the
control plane logic
• Also called the FORWARDING PLANE
 EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONTROL AND
DATA PLANE. Difference between Control Plane and Data Plane - GeeksforGeeks
Data plane refers to all the functions and processes that
Control plane refers to the all functions and processes that
01 forward packets/frames from one interface to another based
determine which path to use to send the packet or frame.
on control plane logic.
02. It is responsible for building and maintaining the IP routing table. It is responsible for forwarding actual IP packet.
Control plane responsible about how packets should be Data plane responsible for moving packets from source to
03.
forwarded. destination.
04. Control plane performs its task independently. Data plane performs its task depending on Control plane.
In general, we can say in control plane it is learned what and In general, we can say in data plane the actual task is
05.
how it can be done. performed based on what is learned.
Control plane packets are processed by router to update the The forwarding plane/data plane forwards the packets based
06.
routing table. on the built logic of control plane.
It includes Spanning Tree Protocol (STP),
Address Resolution Protocol (ARP), It includes decrementing Time To Live (TTL), recomputing
07.
Routing Information Protocol (RIP), Dynamic Host Configuration IP header checksum etc.
Protocol (DHCP) etc.
08. Control plane packets are locally originated by the router itself. Data plane packets go through the router.
Data plane acts as a decision implementer in data
09. Control plane acts as a decision maker in data forwarding.
forwarding.
10. Routing is performed in the control plane. Switching is performed in the data plane.
MICROSOFT
AZURE

• Control plane and data plane

operations - Azure Resource
Manager | Microsoft Learn
 What is a packet? | Network packet definition | Cloudflare
• PACKETS – small segment of a larger message. Data sent over computer networks,
such as the internet, is divided into packets. These packets are then recombined by
the computer or device that receives them.
• Why use packets?
• Ok to send un-chopped data BUT impractical when more than 2 computers are involve because
one has to wait for its turn
• Internet is packet switching network, ability to process packets independently from each other
• Packets can take different network paths to the same destination
PACKETS What is a packet? | Network packet definition | Cloudflare

• PACKET HEADERS – PACKET TRAILERS AND FOOTERS -

attached by certain types of attached at the end, containing additional
networking protocols information about the packet. Only certain
(standardized way of network protocols attach trailers or footers
formatting data such as to packets; mot only attach headers. ESP
(part of the IPsec suite) is one example of a
Transmission Control Protocol
network layer protocol that attaches trailers
(TCP) header and an Internet
to packets.
Protocol (IP) header. It is at
the front of each packet and
seen by the routers, switches,
and computers.
IP (INTERNET PROTOCOL)
What is a packet? | Network packet definition | Cloudflare

• IP protocol – network layer protocol that has to do with routing. Used to

ensure packets arrive at the right destination.

IP PACKET – has an IP header

IP HEADER – contains info on :
• where the packet is from (source IP address),
• where it is going (destination IP address),
• how large the packet is, and
• how long network routers should continue to
forward the packet before dropping it
• Whether or not the packet can be
fragmented and how to reassemble
fragmented packets
 WHAT IS NETWORK TRAFFIC?

NETWORK TRAFFIC – packets that pass through a

network attack

ARE ALL PACKETS USEFUL?

MALICIOUS NETWORK TRAFFIC – data packets designed to compromise or
overwhelm a network in the form of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack,
a vulnerability exploitation or several other forms of cyber attack
WHAT PROTOCOLS DO ROUTERS USE TO CREATE
THE ROUTING TABLES

• Border Gateway Protocol (BGP)

• Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
• Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP)
• Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS
PRODUCE EXAMPLES OF
FUNCTIONS PROVIDED BY
EACH PLANE.
• You create a virtual machine through
a CONTROL PLANE. After the VM is
created, you interact with it through
DATA PLANE (e.g. Remote Desktop
Protocol (RDP).

• You create a storage account through

he CONTROL PLANE, you use the
DATA PLANE to read and write data
in the storage account

• You create an Azure Cosmos DB

database through the control place.
To query data in the database you
need the DATA PLANE.
IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES IN SEPARATING THE DATA
AND CONTROL PLANES
IDENTIFY CHALLENGES IN SEPARATING THE DATA AND
CONTROL PLANES

• SCALABILITY – routing decisions for many routers; must store routes and compute
routing decisions for every router and there are potentially thousands of routers
• RELIABILITY – correct operation under failure
• CONSISTENCY – ensuring consistency across multiple control replicas

• Approaches to solve these: RCP, ONIX

https://in.coursera.org/lecture/sdn/challenges-in-separating-
the-data-and-control-planes-UVo9i
IDENTIFY CHALLENGES IN SEPARATING THE DATA AND
CONTROL PLANES

• SOLUTION for SCALABILITY

• RCP
• Eliminate redundancy by storing a single copy of each route and avoid
redundant computation
• Accelerate lookups to maintain indexes to identify affected routers
• ONIX
• Partitioning: Only keep a subset of the overall network information bae
(NIB) in memory

https://in.coursera.org/lecture/sdn/challenges-in-separating-
the-data-and-control-planes-UVo9i
ROUTING CONTROL PLATFORM (RCP)
• Enables the Border Gateway Interior Gateway Protocol
– monitors the IGP toplogy
Protocol – Internet’s
collection of interdomain routing and provices information to
the RCS
network topology protocol.

map, running an
algorithm, and
selecting
preferred route

BGP-based Routing Control

Platform (RCP) (network-insight.net) freenix05.qrk (mit.edu)
DESCRIBE THE 4D NETWORK ARCHITECTURE
• We take a clean slate approach for re-desiging different aspects of network control and management, guided
by the following three principles:

• Network-level objectives: Running a robust data network depends on satisfying objectives for
performance, reliability, and policy that can (and should) be expressed as goals for the entire network,
separately from the low-level network elements.

• Network-wide views: Timely, accurate, network-wide views of topology, traffic, and events are crucial for
running a robust network.

• Direct control: The decision logic should provide network operators with a direct interface to configure
network elements; this logic should not be implicitly or explicitly hardwired in protocols distributed among
switches.
 In the 4D architecture, we decompose the
DESCRIBE THE 4D NETWORK functions of network control into 4 planes:

ARCHITECTURE decision plane - responsible for creating a

network configuration (e.g. computing FIBs for
each router in the network); logically centralized
controllers convert objectives into packet-
handling state ALL MANAGEMENT AND
CONTROL
dissemination plane that gathers information
about network state (e.g. link up/down
information) to the decision plane, and distributes
decision plane output to routers; installing packet-
processing rules; COMMUNICATION
TO/FROM ROUTERS
discovery plane that enables devices to discover
their directly connected neighbors; for ollecting
topology and traffic; TOPOLOGY AND
TRAFFIC MONITORING
data plane for forwarding network traffic; for
processing packets TRAFFIC HANDLING
The 4D Project (cmu.edu)
 3 GOALS OF 4D ARCHITECTURE

• Network-Level Objectives
• Configure the network, not the routers
• Minimize the maximum link utilization 4D is a
• Connectivity under all layer-two failures generalizat
• Network-wide views ion of RCP
• Complete visibility to drive decision –making
• Traffic matrix, network topology, equipment
• Direct control
• Direct, sole control over data-plane configuration
• Packet forwarding, filtering, marking, buffering
FOR NEXT MEETING
• PREPARE FOR A QUIZ
• MININET HANDS-ON EXERCISES
• Please expect instruction for
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