research-article

B4: experience with a globally-deployed software defined wan

Authors:

Subhasree Mandal,

Leon Poutievski,

Subbaiah Venkata,

Stephen Stuart, and

Amin VahdatAuthors Info & Claims

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review, Volume 43, Issue 4

Pages 3 - 14

https://doi.org/10.1145/2534169.2486019

Published: 27 August 2013 Publication History

Abstract

We present the design, implementation, and evaluation of B4, a private WAN connecting Google's data centers across the planet. B4 has a number of unique characteristics: i) massive bandwidth requirements deployed to a modest number of sites, ii) elastic traffic demand that seeks to maximize average bandwidth, and iii) full control over the edge servers and network, which enables rate limiting and demand measurement at the edge.

These characteristics led to a Software Defined Networking architecture using OpenFlow to control relatively simple switches built from merchant silicon. B4's centralized traffic engineering service drives links to near 100% utilization, while splitting application flows among multiple paths to balance capacity against application priority/demands. We describe experience with three years of B4 production deployment, lessons learned, and areas for future work.

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Cited By

Deo KChaudhary KAssaf M(2024)Adaptive quality of service for packet loss reduction using OpenFlow metersPeerJ Computer Science10.7717/peerj-cs.184810(e1848)Online publication date: 4-Apr-2024
https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.1848
Sharma ABalasubramanian VKamruzzaman J(2024)A Temporal Deep Q Learning for Optimal Load Balancing in Software-Defined NetworksSensors10.3390/s2404121624:4(1216)Online publication date: 14-Feb-2024
https://doi.org/10.3390/s24041216
Dogar AUllah SZhang YAlasmary HWaqas MChen S(2024)Resilient TCP Variant Enabling Smooth Network Updates for Software-Defined Data Center NetworksTsinghua Science and Technology10.26599/TST.2024.901001029:5(1615-1632)Online publication date: Oct-2024
https://doi.org/10.26599/TST.2024.9010010
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Index Terms

B4: experience with a globally-deployed software defined wan
1. Computer systems organization
  1. Architectures
    1. Distributed architectures
2. Networks

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Information & Contributors

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Published In

cover image ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review

ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review Volume 43, Issue 4

October 2013

595 pages

ISSN:0146-4833

DOI:10.1145/2534169

Issue’s Table of Contents

SIGCOMM '13: Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM 2013 conference on SIGCOMM
August 2013
580 pages
ISBN:9781450320566
DOI:10.1145/2486001
General Chairs:
Dah Ming Chiu
Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
,
Jia Wang
AT&T Labs - Research, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Paul Barford
University of Wisconsin, USA
,
Srinivasan Seshan
Carnegie Mellon University, USA

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Publication History

Published: 27 August 2013

Published in SIGCOMM-CCR Volume 43, Issue 4

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