Networks and Distributed Systems

The report evaluates the benefits and capabilities of Software Defined Network (SDN) and Policy Based Network Management (PBM) for an organization. It recommends the use of SDN due to its flexibility and agility in network management. The benefits of SDN include centralized network provisioning, holistic enterprise management, and granular security. The report also discusses the infrastructure requirements and type of solutions for SDN and PBM.

Running head: NETWORKS AND DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
Networks and Distributed Systems
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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NETWORKS AND DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS
Table of Contents
Introduction..........................................................................................................................2
1. Software Defined Network..............................................................................................2
2. Policy Based Network Management...............................................................................5
3. Analysis of SDN and PBM..............................................................................................7
3.1. Capability of SDN....................................................................................................8
3.2. Infrastructure requirements and Type of solutions of SDN......................................8
3.3. Capability of PBM....................................................................................................9
4. Recommended Solution...................................................................................................9
Conclusion.........................................................................................................................10
References..........................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The management decided that the best option for the organization would either be
utilizing a private cloud infrastructure solution or to make use of a public solution. However,
according to the information provided to the management, it was found out that the use of public
cloud solution could possibly risk the privacy and the confidentiality of the data of the
organization (Chen and Zhao 2012). Furthermore, the use of a public cloud solution will possibly
mean that the business process of the organization is needed to be modified for keeping in line
with the provider which will possibly restrict the future plans of the organization. Therefore, it
was finally decided that the existing network of the organization will be extended to build a
private cloud solution for the organization (Zissis and Lekkas 2012). In order to manage the
network operations that are associated with the cloud solutions, the management of the
organization is planning to incorporate modern systems in management of the new network
infrastructure. It is thus decided after obtaining some external consultation that either the
software defined networks (SDN) or the policy based network management (PBM) will be used
for the purpose. The report will identify and evaluate the capabilities of the two network solution
so that the appropriate network model can be recommended for the organization. The process
and benefits of both SDN and PBM are evaluated in order to understand which one will be better
for consideration for the organization. The capabilities of each of the system is analysed in order
to recommend which will be suitable for the organization.
1. Software Defined Network
The management has decided to choose either of the software defined networks or the
policy based network management solutions as an approach to network management (Kim and

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Feamster 2013). For choosing the most suitable approach of network management for the
organization, the capabilities of software defined network is needed to be evaluated. In this
section of the report, the benefits of software defined network and benefits of SDN on the
organization is evaluated.
Software Defined networking is a process of making use of open protocols such as open
flow for applying software control in the network edges. This is done in order to make the
network switches and the routers accessible (Nunes et al. 2014). SDN is an approach of cloud
computing that facilitates the process of network management as it enables programmatically
efficient network configuration. SDN therefore improves the performance of a network by
continuous network monitoring (Sefraoui, Aissaoui and Eleuldj 2012). SDN is mainly used for
network management as it enables the network engineer and the administrator in responding
quickly to the changes in the different business requirements of the organization (Kirkpatrick
2013). This can be achieved by a centralized control console. The technology of SDN
encompasses the multiple kinds of network technologies and is mainly designed to make the
network more flexible so that is can support virtualized servers and storage infrastructure
associated with a modern data centre.
SDN originally defines an approach of designing building and managing the network by
making the network control directly programmable. The benefits of making use of a software
defined network are as follows-
1. The use of software defined networking helps in centralized network provisioning
which is one of the significant advantages of making use of SDN. The use of software defined
network provides a centralized view of the entire network of the organization thus making is

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even easier to centralize the process of enterprise management and provisioning. Therefore, by
abstracting the control to the network, the software defined network can enhance and accelerate
the service by providing more agility in provisioning both physical network and virtual devices.
2. The use of software defined networking further provides the benefit of holistic
enterprise management (Jain and Paul 2013). The use of software defined network helps the IT
managers in experimenting with the configuration of the network without actually bringing an
impact to the network. The use of SDN manages both physical and the virtual switches from a
central controller thus providing a better control to the network.
3. The use of software defined network provides more granular security which is a
significant advantage of making use of SDN (Kreutz et al. 2015). The use of software defined
network centralizes the security control all.
These are the significant advantages of making use of the software defined network as
this process helps in enforcing the centralized control over the network thus enhancing the
process of managing the network security and the operations of the network (Jadeja and Modi
2012).
The use of software defined network will be beneficial for the organization as well. The
benefits of making use of software defined network in the organization is listed below-
1. The use of software defined network not only lowers the administrative efficiency, but
also helps in lowering the operational costs of the organization (Yeganeh, Tootoonchian and
Ganjali 2013). The benefits of making us of SDN in organization include improvements in server
utilization, administrative efficiency and better control of virtualization which as a whole helps
in reducing the operational cost associated with the implementation and maintenance of software

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defined network. Since the routine network administrative savings and the administration issues
can be centralized as well as automated, the operating cost of the system is considerably lowered
which is a significant advantage of making use of the system.
2. With the use of software defined network, the existing network devices of the
organization can be put to use as well. This is possible as SDN helps in better optimization of the
commoditized hardware and the existing hardware can be repurposed by making use of the
instruction from the SDN controller. Therefore, the use of SDN can be less expensive alternative
for the organization which is one of the significant benefits of making use of SDN in the
organization.
3. SDN supports cloud abstraction, and therefore with the use of SDN, it becomes easier
to unify the cloud resources (Qin et al. 2014). With the help of SDN, the networking components
can be managed from the SDN controller.
4. The use of SDN helps in shaping and controlling the data traffic, which in turn
guarantees the content delivery (Xia et al. 2015). With the use of SDN, an organization can
direct and automate the network traffic that helps in easier information management.
These are the benefits of an organization in implementing Software Defined Networks.
However, the impact of the SDN on the networking and the IT staffs of the organization is
needed to be evaluated. The IT staffs of the organization might need to be provided with proper
training in order to manage and maintain SDN in the organization.
2. Policy Based Network Management

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Policy based network management or policy based networking is a paradigm or process
that separates the rules that are in charge of governing the behaviour of the system and the
functionality of a system. The use of policy based networking aims in reducing the maintenance
cost of the information and the communication systems of a network thus increasing the
flexibility and the run time ability of the network. This is one of the significant reasons why the
policy based systems have gradually become a promising solution of implementation of large
scale adaptive system that dynamically change the behaviour and the response to according to
the requirements. The use of policy based network management is fundamentally important for
the management of many complex computing systems.
There are a number of benefits of making us of the policy based network management,
which are listed below-
1. The implementation of Policy-Based Network Management provides better services to
the users.
2. The use of Policy-Based Network Management simplifies the process of device,
network and service management associated with the organization.
3. The use of Policy-Based Network Management in an organization, requires very less
engineering in configuring the system, which is a significant advantage of making use of PBM.
4. The use of Policy-Based Network Management helps in properly defining the behavior
and of a network or a distributed system, thus helping in management of the increasingly
complex programming devices.

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5. The network can be configured according to the business requirements, which is a
significant advantage of making use of Policy-Based Network Management.
After analyzing the benefits of the process of Policy-Based Network Management it is
important to evaluate the benefits of Policy-Based Network Management in an organization. The
organizational benefits of making use Policy-Based Network Management in the said
organization are as follows (Han and Lei 2012)-
1. Policy-Based Network Management helps in proper management of network
applications.
2. Policy-Based Network Management helps in managing the security issues associated
with the organization.
3. With the use of Policy-Based Network Management enables a means of simplifyingthe
process of administration by automating the entire process (Odagiri et al. 2015).
The above discussed points provide an idea of the advantages that the organization can
achieve with the implementation of Policy-Based Network Management.
Since the process of implementation and configuration of the Policy-Based Network
Management is not that complex, the IT staffs of the said organization will not be much affected
and might not require any training as opposed to the implementation of the software defined
network, which is an advantage of making use of Policy-Based Network Management in the
organization.
3. Analysis of SDN and PBM

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In order to provide a detailed analysis of the SDN and the PBM, the capability and the
infrastructure requirements of the organization is evaluated.
3.1. Capability of SDN
Software defined networking can be denoted as an umbrella term that encompasses
different kinds of network technology. The capabilities of Software defined networking are to be
evaluated in order to understand whether the use of SDN is suitable for the said organization.
The capabilities of Software defined networking is listed below-
1. The use of Software defined networking can make the network agile and flexible, quite
similar to the virtualized servers.
2. It provides the network operators, more control over the data of the network that
increases the flexibility in adopting the system.
3. Instead of a firewall, SDN generally deploys an application that makes use of
controller in managing the data plane behavior of the system.
4. The operation mode of SDN is adaptive or dynamic in nature and therefore enhances
the process of network management.
The above discussed points provide a detailed idea of the capabilities of SDN.
3.2. Infrastructure requirements and Type of solutions of SDN
The infrastructure requirements of the software defined networks are as follows -
1. Physical Network- This is needed in order to configure the VLANs, Routing, BGP and
Data center bridging

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2. Physical compute hosts- This is needed as these hosts run Hyper V and are generally
required to host SDN infrastructure and tenant virtual machines.
The use of SDN provides solution to network management and helps in enabling a
programmatically efficient network configuration, which is needed for the said organization.
3.3. Capability of PBM
The capabilities of PBM are listed below (Sharma et al. 2013)-
1. It enables translation of the business rules and procedures of the organization in to
policies
2. These policies can be configured according to business requirments in order to provide
full control to the network and the services.
3. It is capable of uniting the business, system and the implementation spheres of the
organization.
The infrastructure requirements of PBM are quite similar to SDN but are associated with
certain theoretical complexities. The architecture of PBM mainly consists of policy management
tool, policy repository and policy decision point. The use of PBM helps in providing effective
network management solutions.
4. Recommended Solution
It is recommended that the organization should make use of software defined network as
the better network operations. Software Defined network is recommended for the organization as
the use of SDN helps in proper management of the network of the organization. Furthermore,

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SDN is a technology that helps in making use of the existing networking architecture of the
organization in designing the new one and therefore it will be suitable for the organization (Kim
and Feamster 2013). The use of SDN increases the flexibility and agility in the process of
network management thus providing the organization with a better control of the data stored. The
benefits of SDN are prominent in cloud architecture and therefore, it is recommended for the
organization. With the help of SDN, the access to the network becomes easier.
Conclusion
The report has been prepared to provide the solutions to the organization about the use of
software defined networking and policy based network management. In order to choose a better
alternative for the organization, the capabilities and benefits of each of the approach is evaluated.
It is found out that the use of SDN will be suitable for the organization because it provides a
number of advantages. The report evaluates the different advantages of making use of software
defined networking in the organization. The use of SDN will be appropriate as it increases the
flexibility in the process of managing a network of an organiztaion and provides the network
operator with a better control of the network. Thus the use of software defined networking for
the said organization will be appropriate.

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References
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computing. In Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (ICCSEE), 2012 International
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Han, W. and Lei, C., 2012. A survey on policy languages in network and security
management. Computer Networks, 56(1), pp.477-489.
Jadeja, Y. and Modi, K., 2012, March. Cloud computing-concepts, architecture and challenges.
In Computing, Electronics and Electrical Technologies (ICCEET), 2012 International
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Jain, R. and Paul, S., 2013. Network virtualization and software defined networking for cloud
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Kim, H. and Feamster, N., 2013. Improving network management with software defined
networking. IEEE Communications Magazine, 51(2), pp.114-119.
Kim, H. and Feamster, N., 2013. Improving network management with software defined
networking. IEEE Communications Magazine, 51(2), pp.114-119.
Kirkpatrick, K., 2013. Software-defined networking. Communications of the ACM, 56(9), pp.16-
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Kreutz, D., Ramos, F.M., Verissimo, P.E., Rothenberg, C.E., Azodolmolky, S. and Uhlig, S.,
2015. Software-defined networking: A comprehensive survey. Proceedings of the IEEE, 103(1),
pp.14-76.

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Nunes, B.A.A., Mendonca, M., Nguyen, X.N., Obraczka, K. and Turletti, T., 2014. A survey of
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