ABSTRACT
Software-defined network (SDN) platform is an emerging networking technology that offers efficient and seamless processing of traffic flows in the network. This is achieved by executing different network-control functions in a centralized controller. The execution of these network functions (NFs) depends on the implementation of heterogeneous and complex policies in an organization. The network administrators in the organization enforce a wide range of policies that are defined based on various factors. These factors range from different service providers’ requirements in terms of service level agreements (SLAs) to varying application context and network dynamics. The controller generates appropriate flow rules and pushes to the data plane (DP) switches based on these policies enforced by application layer servers. Managing these complex and heterogeneous network policies in SDN is important, but a challenging problem. In this chapter, we discuss various network policies and the policy management approaches that are widely used in the context of SDN. Then, we present an efficient policy management framework in SDN to ensure secure and efficient implementation of these heterogeneous policies, which in turn drive the generation of flow rules in forwarding switches.
