Towards an agile hypervisor for software-defined networks

Abstract

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) introduced a concept of separated control and data planes to allow programmable management of network resources. A network hypervisor is a middle layer that resides between these two planes and enables virtualization of the data plane to support efficient utilization and isolation of network resources in multi-tenant environments. Prior studies have shown the importance of hypervisors in solving a wide variety of problems in shared networking environments. In this work, we propose a design of a general-purpose, agile, and policy-aware hypervisor that can migrate virtual switches in the network. We introduce a model that formalizes the problem of virtualization and enables us to develop efficient algorithms for implementing migration. Through preliminary evaluation of our prototype we show the feasibility and low overhead of our hypervisor.