SDN in Coalition Tactical Networks

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) provides the potential for highly configurable, automated networks by separating the control and forwarding functions of network devices. While SDN appears to have many potential benefits for coalition tactical networking, including rapid reconfigurability and improved network situational awareness, there are significant obstacles to overcome. In particular, the low bandwidth and unreliability that characterize military communication links necessitate a highly resilient control plane, and the exposure of the control plane on the wireless medium presents a new vector for attack. This paper presents the results of a TTCP Workshop on SDN for coalition tactical networking, including an SDN architecture based on protected core networking, a summary of the benefits and challenges, an identification of vulnerabilities, weaknesses and threats and proposals for future work.