Dependable End-to-End Delay Constraints for Real-Time Systems using SDNs

Real-time systems (RTS) require dependable delay guarantees on delivery of network packets. Traditional approaches for providing such guarantees for mission critical applications require the use of expensive custom built hardware and software resources. We propose a novel framework that reduces the management and integration overheads of the traditional approaches by leveraging the capabilities (especially global visibility and ease of management) of Softwaredefined networking (SDN) architectures. Given the specifications of flows requiring real-time guarantees, our framework synthesizes paths through the network and associated switch configurations that can meet the requisite delay requirements for real-time flows. Using exhaustive simulations as well as emulations with real switch software, we show the feasibility of our approach.