Security challenges within Software Defined Networks

A large amount of today's communication occurs within data centers where a large number of virtual servers (running one or more virtual machines) provide service providers with the infrastructure needed for their applications and services. In this thesis, we will look at the next step in the virtualization revolution, the virtualized network. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a relatively new concept that is moving the field towards a more software-based solution to networking. Today when a packet is forwarded through a network of routers, decisions are made at each router as to which router is the next hop destination for the packet. With SDN these decisions are made by a centralized SDN controller that decides upon the best path and instructs the devices along this path as to what action each should perform. Taking SDN to its extreme minimizes the physical network components and increases the number of virtualized components. The reasons behind this trend are several, although the most prominent are simplified processing and network administration, a greater degree of automation, increased flexibility, and shorter provisioning times. This in turn leads to a reduction in operating expenditures and capital expenditures for data center owners, which both drive the further development of this technology