Cluster Leader Election Problem for Distributed Controller Placement in SDN

Genya Ishigaki, Riti Gour, Ashkan Yousefpour, Norihiko Shinomiya, Jason P. Jue

Abstract: This paper discusses the intractability and heuristics of the Cluster Leader Election Problem (CLEP), which is to assign a controller to one of the switches in each cluster of a network. In order to improve scalability in Software Defined Networking (SDN), a network can be clustered into subnetworks and managed by multiple distributed controllers. CLEP deals with the optimal placement of the distributed controllers in the subnetworks considering metrics between the controllers, such as distance and connectivity. Additionally, it is shown that some metrics within each subnetwork, which are discussed in other literature can be guaranteed by selecting specific clustering methods before the placement.