Model-driven networking: A novel approach for SDN applications development

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has been receiving a great deal of attention from both academic and industry communities. One reason to this interest is that SDN enables the network programmability, through an external controller, which supports applications and policies built from SDN programming languages, thus breaking the traditional bind between control and data plane. Nevertheless, the application development in this context is still complex for such recent technology. Moreover, there is a strong need for methodologies and tools that explore the abstraction levels potentials supported by SDN. This paper presents a new approach based on the Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) paradigm, called Model-Driven Networking (MDN). MDN relies on a Domain-Specific Modelling Language (DSML) to create SDN applications. We argue that MDN raises the level of abstraction on development, thus reducing the complexity to implement SDN applications and avoiding inconsistent policies. In order to show the relevance and the technological viability of our proposal, we have specified a DSML and have built a tool for creating SDN applications using the MDN approach.