Impact Analysis of Path Selection Strategies over Blockchain-based Routing in Multi-Domain SDN

Abstract

Over the past decade, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has become one of the most widely used inventions in the field of computer communications. SDN architecture enabled by OpenFlow, among many other praised advantages, has the potential to assist network administrators in providing End-to-End (E2E) Quality of Service (QoS)-guaranteed paths for flows among networks while providing finer-granular flow management. In our earlier work, we introduced QoSChain, which combines the benefits of blockchain technology and SDN for inter-network QoS provisioning. This framework orchestrates a software-driven traffic management system to enable cross-network policy automation, assurance, E2E visibility, control, and validation. In this study, we focus on the impact of path selection strategies on the overall QoSChain performance. Specifically, we evaluate the performance of five simple but effective path selection strategies: First Feasible Path Selection (FFPS), Random Feasible Path Selection (RFPS), Minimum Hop Path Selection (MHPS), FFPS with the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) shortest path at inter-network level (FFPS_BGP), and MHPS with the BGP shortest path at inter-network level (MHPS_BGP). Our experimental results indicate that path selection is crucial to overall performance with hop count minimization delivering superior performance at the expense of initially longer setup times.