A Resilient Mechanism for Multi-Controller Failure in Hybrid SDN-based Networks

SDN is an emerging network paradigm whose main characteristic is the separation of the Control from the Data Plane, allowing the implementation of innovative, robust, and flexible ways to program networks. Moreover, SDN has recently extended its coverage to Hybrid wired and/or wireless environments. However, SDN-enabled devices must be connected to a controller (i.e., a central entity) to be programmable. Therefore, if multiple controllers fail in a short period, regardless of the ample resource availability in Hybrid SDN environments, the whole network infrastructure, and the overall service are compromised. This article presents a mechanism capable of handling multi-controller failure in SDN by considering the hybrid nature of the infrastructure and the scale of the failure. Preliminary results show that by applying the proposed mechanism, it is possible to increase the device's controller coverage by up to 70% even if half of the controllers are unavailable compared to conventional approaches.