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Large-scale and diverse businesses based on the cloud computing platform bring the heavy network traffic to cloud data centers. However, the unbalanced workload of cloud data center network easily leads to the network congestion, the low resource utilization rate, the long delay, the low reliability, and the low throughput. In order to improve the utilization efficiency and the quality of services (QoS) of cloud system, especially to solve the problem of network congestion, we propose MTSS, a multi-path traffic scheduling mechanism based on software defined networking (SDN). MTSS utilizes the data flow scheduling flexibility of SDN and the multi-path feature of the fat-tree structure to improve the traffic balance of the cloud data center network. A heuristic traffic balancing algorithm is presented for MTSS, which periodically monitors the network link and dynamically adjusts the traffic on the heavy link to achieve programmable data forwarding and load balancing. The experimental results show that MTSS outperforms equal-cost multi-path protocol (ECMP), by effectively reducing the packet loss rate and delay. In addition, MTSS improves the utilization efficiency, the reliability and the throughput rate of the cloud data center network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OpenFlow, the main protocol for software-defined networking (SDN) advocated by Google, requires multiple flow tables with long and variable rule lengths. For fast packet forwarding, using ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) as implementation of lookup-table has displayed superior performance in executing the conventional packet classification algorithms. However, applying traditional TCAM designs to an OpenFlow switch leads to problems of insufficient word length, inflexible table configuration, and high-power consumptions. This paper presents a low-power dynamic reconfigurable TCAM design for OpenFlow-compliant packet processing. It can support long and variable word lengths for different flow tables, with less than 5% of area overhead. To reduce dynamic power consumption without sacrificing throughput, the proposed hybrid-pipelined structure based on NAND-NOR CAM and pipelined-TCAM, can achieve lower energy-delay products than traditional TCAM. Moreover, the proposed self-power gating technique controlled by the mask data optimizes both NAND and NOR core cells, which lowers power consumption without additional control and routing overhead. Finally, the low-power reconfigurable TCAM is implemented in TSMC 40 nm CMOS technology. The implementation results show that the energy metric of the proposed reconfigurable TCAM is only 0.177 fJ/bit/search, at a 416 MHz operating frequency. Thus, the proposed TCAM design is very suitable for the emerging high performance packet processing in future SDN applications that need long and variable word lengths. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Is there a first-mover benefit for carriers adopting early-to-market SDN strategies? If so, does this mean a future where pioneers will only want to do business with other SDN-enabled organisations? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To many, AT&T epitomises all that is wrong with today's top-tier telcos: cautious, conservative and conformist. Not anymore. The top brass are backing an audacious root-and-branch network revamp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs that nonprofit trade organization Open Networking Foundation (ONF) has passed its 100 member to promote software-defined networking (SDN) technology and its OpenFlow protocol in a bid. It informs about new members are consultancy TorreyPoint, optical transport vendor Coriant and cloud-services provider Virtela. It further details regarding software-defined networking (SDN) technology.