An energy-efficient load distribution framework for SDN controllers

Software-defined networking (SDN) has evolved as an effective platform for future Internet due to its capability of configuring the network dynamically with varying requirements. It has been observed that the load and energy requirement of SDN devices increase significantly with the growth of communication networks. Therefore, there is a need for efficient modeling of SDN controller that can balance the load as well as optimize the energy consumption by the devices. In this paper, we present an energy-efficient load distribution framework; controller system model for efficient load distribution and routing of traffic that objectively optimize the energy consumption in the network. Our model balances load according to the heterogeneous traffic demands as well as reduces energy consumption by introducing energy-efficient routing algorithm selection procedure. The load balancing scheme is drifted by switch migration technique for multiple controllers simultaneously, whereas the novelty of energy-efficient routing lies on sleep and active mode of network devices. We present interaction between load-balancing scheme and energy-efficient routing towards the network’s performance enhancement. The efficacy of our proposed controller system model is justified with extensive simulation results that show approximately 25% reduction of energy consumption and approximately 20% performance increment. Our proposed model is applicable to real-life network environment satisfying the standards of green communication.