Traffic Policing in Dynamic Military Networks Using Software Defined Networking

Abstract

This thesis looks at how Software Defined Networking (SDN) can be used to provide traffic engineering and to police traffic in an Operational Military Network (OMN). SDN is a concept where the control plane is separated from the forwarding plane, and the control plane is capable of controlling forwarding plane elements located on multiple network nodes using the OpenFlow protocol. Specifically, we have discussed the problems in OMNs, and possible SDN approaches to mitigate the challenges. Based on the findings, we have designed, developed and validated an SDN implementation capable of obtaining dynamic topology information and to enforce user-defined policies in order provide traffic engineering for flows, resources, and topology.