Security in OpenFlow-based SDN, opportunities and challenges

The SDN paradigm profoundly affects the architecture of networks in favor of more adaptability to the needs for new value-added services. This article examines the positive and negative impacts of such a change on network security. While few in-depth studies have attempted to cover this issue in a comprehensive way, we first tried to define the most relevant axes of analyses with regard to this concept, namely availability, access control and application services oriented security. In relation to these axes as well as to the state of the art of security, a number of researches and studies that have addressed this issue by proposing solutions through the OpenFlow specification are analyzed with the aim to highlight the real opportunities and the real challenges brought by this new concept for the network security.