Abstract

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is a fundamental paradigm that reorganizes network management by decoupling the control and data planes. SDN controllers, at the heart of this architecture, provide centralized flow management. However, their scalability in large-scale environments is a critical factor for the adoption of SDN. This study proposes a rigorous experimental comparative analysis of four major open-source SDN controllers: OpenDaylight, ONOS, Ryu, and Floodlight. The evaluation was conducted by emulating various network topologies (Tree and Mesh, from 10 to 100 nodes) with Mininet and using Cbench for benchmarking. Performance was measured according to key responsiveness and quality of service metrics: latency, throughput, round-trip time (RTT), and jitter. The experimental results demonstrate that ONOS exhibits superior scalability and stable performance under heavy load. Conversely, Floodlight experiences significant performance degradation with an increasing number of nodes. This research provides objective and factual data to guide the selection of SDN controllers based on deployment requirements, particularly for infrastructures requiring high resilience and very large-scale management.

Keywords

  • SDN
  • controllers
  • scalability
  • OpenDaylight
  • ONOS
  • Ryu
  • Floodlight
  • Mininet
  • Cbench
  • network perform

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