Using MSPG to Suppress Flooding in the Data‐Link Layer for SDN

Abstract

The media access control (MAC) address is the basis of frame forwarding in data‐link layer. When MAC missing occurs in the software‐defined network (SDN), the processing method is the same as that of Ethernet, which is also broadcast. The broadcast will spread and cover part or even the entire network, result in a large number of frames, which leads to a sharp increase in network traffic, even cause congestion. To suppress the layer‐2 flooding, a new frame forwarding method is proposed, namely, multidevice search and path generation (MSPG). New approach will search multiple devices when MAC missing occurs and calculate a forwarding path; a set of flow table is generated to restrain the switch from broadcasting. Experiments and analysis show that in comparison with the existing frame forwarding methods in SDN, MSPG can effectively suppress flooding, greatly reduce the network load, minimize the traffic between data plane and control plane when MAC missing occurs, and reduce energy consumption significantly. The MSPG’s path calculation and flow dispatch method also decrease the forwarding delay and are more suitable for large‐scale network.