Analyzing the Performance of Software Defined Networks vs Real Networks

Abstract

[EN] Emulators and simulators provide an easy way to reduce hardware needs in experiments. Because of that, network researchers use applications that allow them to emulate or simulate networks, like Mininet in Software Defined Networks. It is desired to obtain very close results between the ones given in a virtual network and the ones obtained when the real network hardware is implemented in order to avoid using too much hardware in complex experiments without gathering unreal results. In this paper, we compare the experimental results obtained when a virtual network is generated by using Mininet versus a real implemented network. We have compared them varying the Maximum Transmission Unit (MTU) on Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) packets. Ethernet, Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI), and Wireless Local Area Network 802.11 (WLAN 802.11) MTUs have been used in our experimental tests. We have worked with different link capabilities and generated traffic with different bandwidth.