A Taxonomy of Software-Defined Networking (SDN)-Enabled Cloud Computing

Abstract

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) opened up new opportunities in networking with its concept of the segregated control plane from the data-forwarding hardware, which enables the network to be programmable, adjustable, and reconfigurable dynamically. These characteristics can bring numerous benefits to cloud computing, where dynamic changes and reconfiguration are necessary with its on-demand usage pattern. Although researchers have studied utilizing SDN in cloud computing, gaps still exist and need to be explored further. In this article, we propose a taxonomy to depict different aspects of SDN-enabled cloud computing and explain each element in details. The detailed survey of studies utilizing SDN for cloud computing is presented with focus on data center power optimization, traffic engineering, network virtualization, and security. We also present various simulation and empirical evaluation methods that have been developed for SDN-enabled clouds. Finally, we analyze the gap in current research and propose future directions.