OpenFlow: enabling innovation in campus networks
The work
| Authors | Nick McKeown; Tom Anderson; Hari Balakrishnan; Guru Parulkar; Larry Peterson; Jennifer Rexford; Scott Shenker; Jonathan Turner |
|---|---|
| Type | article |
| Year | 2008 |
| Citekey | mckeown2008openflow |
Where it appeared
| Published in | ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 69--74 |
Identifiers
| DOI | 10.1145/1355734.1355746 |
|---|
Access
| Landing page | https://doi.org/10.1145/1355734.1355746 |
|---|
Abstract
This whitepaper proposes OpenFlow: a way for researchers to run experimental protocols in the networks they use every day. OpenFlow is based on an Ethernet switch, with an internal flow-table, and a standardized interface to add and remove flow entries. Our goal is to encourage networking vendors to add OpenFlow to their switch products for deployment in college campus backbones and wiring closets. We believe that OpenFlow is a pragmatic compromise: on one hand, it allows researchers to run experiments on heterogeneous switches in a uniform way at line-rate and with high port-density; while on the other hand, vendors do not need to expose the internal workings of their switches. In addition to allowing researchers to evaluate their ideas in real-world traffic settings, OpenFlow could serve as a useful campus component in proposed large-scale testbeds like GENI. Two buildings at Stanford University will soon run OpenFlow networks, using commercial Ethernet switches and routers. We will work to encourage deployment at other schools; and We encourage you to consider deploying OpenFlow in your university network too.
How it got here
| How it got here | import via drheap-computer-networks |
|---|---|
| Added | 2026-08-13 00:00 UTC |
| Not denied by | a person 2026-08-16 17:15 UTC |
Filed under
Cite it as
@article{mckeown2008openflow,
title = {OpenFlow: enabling innovation in campus networks},
author = {Nick McKeown and Tom Anderson and Hari Balakrishnan and Guru Parulkar and Larry Peterson and Jennifer Rexford and Scott Shenker and Jonathan Turner},
year = {2008},
journal = {ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review},
volume = {38},
number = {2},
pages = {69--74},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)},
doi = {10.1145/1355734.1355746},
}
This record lives at https://refs.drheap.org/mckeown2008openflow/ and will keep doing so.