SD-GPON: A Dynamic Prioritization for Efficient Traffic Management Based on Controlling DSCP

Abstract

Existing Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) networks exhibit weaknesses in their traffic management abilities, specifically in the dynamic prioritization of data flow according to the policy constraints imposed by network administrators. In legacy GPON, the real-time priority process is achieved between the Optical Line Terminal (OLT) and Optical Network Unit (ONU) to manage different types of traffic like voice and video. The precedence process in GPON could be complicated to manage, particularly in networks with multiple traffic types. As a result, latency may adversely affect network performance. To tackle these shortcomings, we introduced a Software-Defined GPON (SD-GPON) approach by taking benefits of the SDN and virtualization techniques to manage data flow prioritization dynamically. Our proposal permits an entire control prioritization of data flow by modifying the Differentiated Service Code Points (DSCP) classes via a central vision of the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) controller to forward data based on its flow tables. In addition, we used Python programming language to virtualize the OLT to facilitate traffic management by the SDN Controller (SDNc), Mininet simulation to emulate the proposed network, and the ONOS platform controller to apply instances on the proposed network. The analysis of the proposed scheme revealed the superiority of the SD-GPON over GPON networks upstream and downstream for audio and video traffic by approximately 36%.