A Middleware for Integrating Legacy Network Devices into Software-Defined Networking (SDN)

Software Defined Networking (SDN) definitely brings along benefits such as manageability, automation of network andmanagement processes amongst others, however, at the expense of major drawbacks such as huge investment in SDN-capable hardware, vendor lock-in and backward incompatibility with legacy devices. SDN itself being based on a new concept, provides very few aspects in common with traditional networking devices with each SDN vendor usually limiting the SDN capabilities to their own devices only. Even with the introduction of open protocols such as OpenFlow with the aim to provide vendor neutrality, backward compatibility still remains a problem. This paper is geared towards addressing the main issues governing the migration towards SDN and hence provide the desired vendor neutrality, backward compatibility without compromising on networking features, security, ease of deployment and management inter alia. With this concept in mind, an SDN Middleware System has been conceptualized to offer the aforementioned features whereby the backend of the system would be responsible to intercept, inspect and process OpenFlow configurations from the SDN Manager and the SDN Controller and thereafter interpret these commands converting them into the desired configuration in legacy networking terms after which, the legacy nodes are configured with the equivalent of the legacy vendor OS.