PaFloMon -- A Slice Aware Passive Flow Monitoring Framework for OpenFlow Enabled Experimental Facilities

Abstract

The Passive Flow Monitoring (PaFloMon) framework aims at enriching OpenFlow (OF) platforms with user-aware passive monitoring tools. It thus complements user-oriented network programming of OF controllers with measurement capabilities offered to advanced users (slice owners), e.g. Future Internet researchers. PaFloMon provides per-slice monitoring plane isolation, extending control-plane slice isolation features of OF infrastructures, while it empowers users with monitoring toolsets, e.g. sFlow, Net Flow, widely employed in legacy networking systems. It is based on slice-centric statistics unilaterally described through an XML based Resource Specification schema (RSpec) and collected across Future Internet experimental facilities. The feasibility of slice-based monitoring is verified via sFlow trials in OpenFlow S/W (Open vSwitch) and H/W (NEC IP8800) platforms. PaFoMon can be easily integrated within OF control frameworks, notably the OFELIA framework being developed by the Future Internet Research & Experimentation program of the European Union.