A General Approach to Conflict Detection in Software-Defined Networks

Software-defined networks (SDN) replacing the network appliances of traditional networks with logically centrally deployed applications, which are able to introduce the network function they implement into any element in the network. This flexibility renders SDN prone to conflict. We demonstrate conflict between applications in a laboratory setting to emphasize the importance of conflict detection in production networks. The evaluation of an analytical approach shows substantial obstacles in the general case. Our experimental approach produces conflict classes and detection patterns by means of studying network behaviour in the presence of multiple applications and traffic profiles being applied to different topologies. Based on such experiments, we illustrate the extraction of conflict patterns and their application to conflict detection in new situations. © 2019, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.