Integrating legacy forwarding environment to OpenFlow/SDN control plane

Abstract: Currently, there is a philosophical problem that arises between the real need for current support to OpenFlow and legacy network infrastructure. Among them, the legacy networking has not been compatible with OpenFlow network, and for that, it needs to be replaced or a few cases upgraded, as a consequence there are additional spending with new equipment OpenFlow-based. This paper introduces a proposal of hybrid SDN solution based on OpenFlow protocol and called of LegacyFlow, which is able to control Legacy equipment (non-OpenFlow) through OpenFlow protocol 1.0. Results show that it is possible used the LegacyFlow together with OpenFlow switches keeping a good performance time with OpenFlow application.