Enhancing the performance of server load balancing in software defined networks

Abstract

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a new network paradigm that newlineintelligently controls the network to manage its resources. The separation of newlinenetwork control and data plane provides the global view of a network. newlineThe logically centralized control plane enables the abstraction of network to its newlineapplication and services. SDN provides an opportunity to improve the network newlineperformance with the help of global view of network and the feedback control newlineusing the information exchanged between different layers in the network newlinearchitecture. SDN helps the network administrator in configuring the network newlinefrom a single point through software controlling and the entire network can be newlineconfigured through programming and is dynamically optimized, based on the newlinenetwork status. OpenFlow based SDN technologies provide better orchestration newlineof network resources and is adaptable to the changing business needs and newlinereduces the operational complexities. newlineServer Load balancing (SLB) is an important application of SDN that aims newlineto distribute evenly the network application traffic across multiple servers to ensure newlineconsistent and reliable service to the end users. The goal of server load balancing is newlineallocation of servers in the server farm for the request of web services with newlineminimum response time. The main idea is to accept the requests from the users by a newlineload balancer which dispatches the incoming request to the servers in a cluster using newlinesome appropriate strategies. The request dispatcher is configured with virtual IP newlineaddress and all the client requests are sent to the virtual IP. newlineSDN has paved the way for new opportunities to design an effective and newlineefficient server load balancing system. newline