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Section: Application Domains

SDN and Data-Center Networks

As the SDN paradigm and its implementations bring new opportunities that can be leveraged in different contexts, in particular for security and performance, programmable networks are also part of the research scope of Resist. This includes data-plane programming models and hardware offloading that enable very flexible programming at the network level. While OpenFlow was initially designed for academic research, SDN in general has then been adopted by industrial players, above all in data-center networks. It supports innovations to better share load and optimize resources among processes, in particular for virtualization platforms. Contributing to the development of these technologies is primordial for us as they are key elements for monitoring and enhancing the performance and security of future data-center networks.

When defining or extending SDN technologies, the strongest constraint is to guarantee a satisfactory level of performance, i.e. enabling high flexibility in programming with a reduced footprint of network throughput. However, as it may also break isolation principles between multiple tenants, security has to carefully considered, either by adding safeguard mechanisms at run-time or through a priori verification and testing.