Software Defined Networks - NET 7344

This course presents, using theory and practice, the principles of software networks and virtualized and shared computer infrastructures and services. This evolution from static computer networks to programmable infrastructures and services using commodity hardware has been enabled by the emergence of the cloud, Software Defined Networks (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization paradigm. This course will focus on this evolution in terms of overall architecture, orchestration and management of programmable networks and of virtualized services and network functions as well as on the control of the data plane via SDN controllers and services managers. The management, control and data plane evolutions will be thoroughly analyzed, investigated and implemented by the students to get acquainted with the associated orchestration engines (e.g. TOSCA), SDN controllers (ONOS, ODL, Ryu, etc…) and the various de facto protocols, data models and interfaces across the planes (such as OpenFlow, NetConf/Yang, TAPI) and associated plug-ins and drivers. Related use cases in the context of corporate networks, 5G, inter-ISP are analyzed and investigated. Since the notion of placement of virtualized services and network functions are fundamental in programmable networks, optimal placement and resource provisioning algorithms in hosting and shared infrastructures will be addressed by the students during the course. They will analyze existing embedding, service function chaining and slicing algorithms in a multi-tenant context and propose their own via micro research projects. A more general picture of SDN and NFV in the context of Cloud Computing, Edge Computing, Mobile and Fog Cloud is also presented.
Lecturers : Djamal Zeghlache, Télécom SudParis