Hybrid SDN Management System

A network management system to manage hybrid SDN networks (consisting of SDN and traditional non-SDN devices) allowing users to configure various policies using a unified GUI environment.

Overview

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The Hybrid SDN Network Management System is designed to manage hybrid networks that include both SDN (Software-Defined Networking) and traditional non-SDN devices. The system provides a unified, user-friendly GUI that enables configuration, and monitoring of network devices.

At the heart of the system is a modular controller built with the Ryu framework, which allows communication with SDN devices using OpenFlow, while also incorporating NETCONF support for managing traditional network devices. This dual compatibility allows management of hybrid network infrastructures from a single platform.

The system implements policy management, allowing users to define and enforce network policies for flow management, routing, blocking, and more. Policies can be created, modified, or deleted through the GUI, offering flexibility in network management.

With its real-time network visualization, the system allows users to monitor network performance, identify congestion or underutilized resources, and make informed decisions about their network configurations. The system’s interactive network graph also gives better user experience.

Usage Guide

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This section provides a general overview of the features offered by the system and how use them.

Initial Setup

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• Networking devices must be accessible to management server (where the system is running).
• Traditional devices must be pre-configured with a management address and have NETCONF enabled.
• Traditional devices must be configured with the same NETCONF username and password.

Adding devices

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• To add new traditional devices, users can either use the GUI or edit config/netconf.txt configuration file.
• To add new SDN devices, simply configure the management server as the controller on the SDN device itself.

Network View

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Users can monitor their network using the GUI. It displays a network summary panel on the side, and a visualization of active devices and their connections. The network graph is interactive allowing users to freely move nodes and organize the view as they see fit.

Only active links are displayed on the graph; any disabled links or links blocked by policies are hidden. Links are color-coded based on utilization:

• Red: high load.
• Green: low load.
• Gray: unutilized.

Additionally, available subnets are represented as green boxes, connected to their gateway devices.

Policy Management

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All configurations are managed using policies, which can be created, modified, or deleted via the side panel.

The system currently supports six types of policies:

• Address Policy: Defines a host subnet in the network. When used, the system configures the appropriate gateway interface and updates routing on all devices in the network to ensure accessibility to the new subnet.
• Flow Policy: Specifies a flow, which is a set of source and destination IPs, protocol, and port numbers. Defined flows can be used in other policies.
• Block Policy: Blocks traffic matching a flow.
• Route Policy: Controls the routing of traffic that matches a specified flow.
• Zone Policy: Assigns a device as a member to a zone. Zones can be used with Block Policy.
• Disable Policy: Disables an interface on a device.

Device Multi-selection

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Route Policy and Zone Policy can be added to multiple devices in one action by using Device Multi-Selection.

To select multiple devices:

• Hold the Shift key and draw a selection box around the targeted devices.
• Hold the Ctrl key and select multiple devices one by one.

When multiple devices are selected, the following actions will appear in the side panel:

• Add Zone: Adds all selected devices to the specified zone.
• Add Route: Configures a new route for the specified flow that passes through the selected devices in the order they were selected in. If multiple paths are possible, the system will present a list of the best routes, allowing the user to choose from.

System Design

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The system consists of three primary components, each of which is built using a different framework:

• Controller: Manages communication with networking devices. Built using Ryu Framework.
• GUI Application: The Graphical User Interface. Built using React.
• API: Connection link between the Controller and the GUI. Built using FastAPI.

Controller

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The Controller is the heart of the system. Built using Ryu framework, it is responsible for managing and controlling networking devices through nine different specialized modules.

Ryu Framework

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Ryu is a Python-based framework for developing SDN systems. The framework offers two main capabilities:

• A modular architecture, where each module runs as a ‘Ryu Application’. Ryu runs each application in its own thread, and allows inter-module communication through message-passing.
• Built-in OpenFlow support for every application, enabling applications to recieve and send OpenFlow messages to OpenFlow-enabled switches.

Traditional Devices Management

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While SDN devices can be managed using the built-in OpenFlow support, traditional devices require NETCONF protocol for their communication. The NETCONF Controller achieves that by establishing and maintaining NETCONF connections with the registered traditional devices. Other modules utilize this module to perform any function on traditional devices.

Topology Discovery

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Topology discovery is achieved using Topology Discovery Unit, which manages the network topology using LLDP. This is done by:

• Detecting and registering new devices.
• Keeping track of devices status and availability.
• Mapping the links between the devices.
• Monitoring for any topology changes.

The unit comprises the following three modules:

• Classic Topology Discovery: Perform topology discovery on traditional devices, making use of the NETCONF Controller for its communication with the traditional devices.

• SDN Topology Discovery: Handles topology discovery on SDN devices. It communicates with the devices directly through Ryu Framework native OpenFlow support.

• Topology Manager: Collects discovery data from both discovery modules, combining the data to generate a uniform topology for the whole network.

Policies Management

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The Policy Manager module provides management of user-defined policies. While policies are defined via the GUI, the Policy Manager handles:

• Storage of policies.
• Validation of new policies.
• Exposing the policies to other parts of the system.

Device Configuration

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Configurations are specified using high-level user-defined policies, which are taken by the Configuration Unit to be translated to appropriate per-device configurations.

The Configuration Unit, similarly to Topology Discovery Unit, comprises three modules:

• Configuration Generator: Combines user-defined policies with the current network topology to generate per-device configurations. New configurations are generated whenver the policies or the topology changes.
• Classic Configurator: Handles traditional devices configuration by using NETCONF Controller to send appropriate NETCONF commands to each traditional devices to apply its generated configurations.
• SDN Configurator: Manages configurations for SDN devices by sending OpenFow messages to each device to apply the configurations.

GUI

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The GUI is developed using React Framework. The network visualization is implemented using the ReactFlow library.

API

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The system includes a simple API that is used to faciliate communication between the Controller and the GUI. The Controller uses the API to expose active topology and policies, while the GUI uses it to send instructions to the Controller to create new policies or register traditional devices.