NetO-App: A Network Orchestration Application for Centralized Network Management in Small Business Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces NetO-App, a network orchestration tool designed to enhance centralized management and automation in small business networks using SDN architecture.

Contribution

It proposes a novel SDN-based architecture tailored for small business networks, enabling scalable, flexible, and automated network management.

Findings

Enhanced network management and operations with the proposed architecture.

Effective orchestration of network policies and configuration automation.

Improved communication management within small business network infrastructure.

Abstract

Software-defined networking (SDN) is reshaping the networking paradigm. Previous research shows that SDN has advantages over traditional networks because it separates the control and data plane, leading to greater flexibility through network automation and programmability. Small business networks require flexibility, like service provider networks, to scale, deploy, and self-heal network infrastructure that comprises of cloud operating systems, virtual machines, containers, vendor networking equipment, and virtual network functions (VNFs); however, as SDN evolves in industry, there has been limited research to develop an SDN architecture to fulfill the requirements of small business networks. This research proposes a network architecture that can abstract, orchestrate, and scale configurations based on small business network requirements. Our results show that the proposed architecture provides enhanced network management and operations when combined with the network orchestration application (NetO-App) developed in this research. The NetO-App orchestrates network policies, automates configuration changes, and manages internal and external communication between the campus networking infrastructure.