An OpenFlow extension for the OMNeT++ INET framework

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a new paradigm for communication networks which separates the control plane from the data plane of forwarding elements. This way, SDN constitutes a flexible architecture that allows quick and easy configuration of network devices. This ability is particularly useful when networks have to be adapted to changing traffic volumes of different applications running on the network. OpenFlow is currently the most prominent approach which implements the SDN concept and offers a high flexibility in the routing of network flows. In this paper, we describe the implementation of our model of the OpenFlow system in the INET framework for OMNeT++. We present performance results to show the correctness of our model. As a first application, we use the simulation model to assess the round-trip-times in a theoretical OpenFlow deployment in a real topology of a North-American Testbed.