NVP: A Network Virtualization Proxy for Software Defined Networking

Abstract: The combination of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) can improve the control and utilization of network resources. However, this issue still requires proper solutions to virtualize large-scale networks, which would allow the use of SDN and Virtualization in real environments.Thus, this paper proposes a virtualization architecture for SDN that relies on a proxy-based approach. The NVP (Network Virtualization Proxy) is a virtualization proxy that intercepts messages exchanged between controllers and switches SDN enabling network virtualization. An implementation of the proposal was developed as a proof of concept and load testing was performed showing that the solution can provide network virtualization in a scalable manner, using less than 2.5 MB of memory to manage 100 switches performing simultaneous requests, whereas FlowVisor requires more than 200 MB.