Load and stress testing for SDN’s northbound API

Abstract

In this work, we apply load and stress testing for well-known Software defined networking (SDN) controllers from an SDN application perspective. More precisely, we focus on the communication between the controller and SDN applications via the northbound Application programming interface (API). We apply proper load and stress testing plans, in order to correctly capture the behaviour of the controllers under consideration. Our load testing includes applying gradually increased workloads to find the throughput each controller can handle. Our stress test, on the other hand, builds upon the results of the load test and includes (1) measuring the API’s ability to handle extremely high workloads for a prolonged period of time and (2) directly attacking the underlying hosts of SDN network using Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. We considered POX, Ryu, Floodlight, OpenDayLight (ODL) and Open Network Operating System (ONOS) SDN controllers. The experimental results showed that ONOS and ODL followed by Floodlight achieve the best throughput. Whereas POX and Ryu are characterized by lower throughput accompanied with partial and/or continuous failures during high workloads or DoS/DDoS attacks.