The Taub Faculty of Computer Science Events and Talks

The emerging trend of Software Defined Networks (SDN) has been enthusiastically explored by researchers over the last decade, as it provides the flexibility and agility to update networks dynamically, in a way that efficiently utilizes the network resources. In this talk we explore the use of accurate time and synchronized clocks as a tool for coordinating network updates in SDNs. We discuss key use cases in which using time introduces a significant advantage compared to previously known network update approaches. A practical approach to using accurate time in SDN is presented, and tools providing an efficient accurate scheduling method are proposed. This work also defines extensions to standard network protocols, enabling practical implementations of our concepts. Accurate time is shown to be a powerful feature that can be leveraged by various diverse SDN applications.