Quantitative assessment model on path assignment for SDNs

Software defined networking (SDN) has emerged as an efficient network technology for lowering operating cost through simplified hardware, software and management. Specific research focus has been placed to achieve a successful carrier grade network with SDN, in terms of scalability, reliability, QoS and service management. In this paper, graph theory and traffic engineering are used to model the network state transitions and path assignment problem at first. Next, we present a quantitative assessment model on path assignment for a centralized controller to assess different kinds of path assignments, considering optimal path utilization, network load balance, network load volatility, and resource utilization simultaneously. In the end, an example forquantitatively assessing existing different path assignments is detailed to illustrate our proposed model.