An Efficient Controller Placement Algorithm using Clustering in Software Defined Networks

Software defined networking (SDN) is an emerging network paradigm that separates the control plane from data plane and ensures programmable network management. In SDN, the control plane is responsible for decision-making, while packet forwarding is handled by the data plane based on flow entries defined by the control plane. The placement of controllers is an important research issue that significantly impacts the performance of SDN. In this work, we utilize clustering techniques to group networks into multiple clusters and propose an algorithm for optimal controller placement within each cluster. The evaluation involves the use of the Mininet emulator with POX as the SDN controller. By employing the silhouette score, we determine the optimal number of controllers for various topologies. Additionally, to enhance network performance, we employ the meeting point algorithm to calculate the best location for placing the controller within each cluster. The proposed approach is compared with existing works in terms of throughput, delay, and jitter using six topologies from the Internet Zoo dataset.