Introducing a Test Framework for Quality of Service Mechanisms in the Context of Software-Defined Networking

Ietworking architecture, supporting Quality of Service (QoS) has been challenging due to its centralized nature. Software-Defined Networking (SDN) provides dynamic, flexible, and scalable control and management for networks. This study introduces a test framework for testing QoS mechanisms and network topologies inside an SDN environment. Class-Based Queueing QoS mechanisms are tested as an anchor to test the introduced framework. Using a previous study as a benchmark to test the introduced framework, results show that the test framework works accordingly and is capable of producing accurate results. Moreover, results in this study show that the distributed Leaf-enforced QoS mechanisms have 11% lower latency compared to the traditional centralized Core-enforced QoS mechanisms. Leaf-enforced QoS also has approximately 0.22% more raw IP throughput than Core-enforced QoS. The HTTP throughput from the Apache Bench Transfer Rate showed that Leaf-enforced QoS with a 2.4% advantage of Core-enforced QoS. SDN is relatively new and there are many possible QoS strategies that can be applied and tested. These initiatives can benefit from an extensible testing framework.