The method has been tested in the case of user traffic classification over SDN, where ten most known controllers were considered. The results showed that „OpenDaylight‟ (ODL) is the controller that responds the better to the constraints and requirements of this specific application. The method is generic and can be applied regardless of the SDN application. | International Journal of Computer Networks and Communications Security VOL. 5, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2017, 239–247 Available online at: E-ISSN 2308-9830 (Online) / ISSN 2410-0595 (Print) A Systematic and Generic Method for Choosing A SDN Controller Omayma BELKADI1 and Yassin LAAZIZ2 1, 2 LabTIC, National School of Applied Sciences in Tangier, Department of Communication systems and Computer science, Morocco 1 , 2ylaaziz@ ABSTRACT Controllers are fundamental elements for the implementation of a Software-Defined Network (SDN) application. The present work focusses on the problem of choosing the appropriate controller, for a specific use case, among the multiple solutions proposed by academia and industry. We here present a new method for controllers' benchmarking, which allows finding the right controller for each use case in a systematic and rational manner. The Method is based on two steps: the first consists on classifying the controllers using a Multi-Criteria Decision Making method according to the relevance of their features for the use case. This step enables to limit considerably the number of potential controllers for the SDN application. In the second step, a performance evaluation is carried out using the „CBENCH‟ tool, where only the first three ranked controllers at the first step are considered. The method has been tested in the case of user traffic classification over SDN, where ten most known controllers were considered. The results showed that „OpenDaylight‟ (ODL) is the controller that responds the better to the constraints and requirements of this specific application. The method is generic and can be applied regardless of the SDN application. Keywords: Software Defined Networks, Multi-Criteria Decision Making, Analytic Hierarchy Process, CBENCH, SDN Controllers. Nevertheless, due to the lack of standardization for SDN Networks [3], many controllers were proposed Service providers want their networks to .
