IPOM: Interactive proxy management in future communication networks using OpenFlow

The network structure of current experimental facilities is often determined by the sites participating in the test bed. At each site, there are many nodes, typically connected by a simple switched network. The connectivity between the sites is predefined by the topology of the connecting IP network. The advantages of this architecture is the low acquisition cost and the simple extensibility. The major drawback is that the topology is fixed and does not reflect the structures found in most large-scale networks and the Internet itself. Therefore, we propose an Interactive PrOxy Management (IPOM) tool which enables us to define and emulate networks of arbitrary complexity on top of existing experimental facilities by means of OpenFlow [1] and network emulating proxy nodes. This architecture does not require any physical changes to the experimental facility and switching between different network topology setups is performed within seconds.