Centralized Ethernet Switching

Abstract

Ethernet switching is a technology which allows various computers to be connected to a local area network, passing messages / information from one to the other through the use of protocols. Ethernet has over the years been faced with a number of problems, including bandwidth shortfalls, network loops, packet loss, security and delays. These challenges have resulted in a number of solutions, such as STP, SPB and TRILL, and various proposals, including Ethane, Open flow and ETNA.

However, despite all these efforts, little attention has been paid to their scalability. To address these Ethernet problems, this thesis examined the feasibility of scaling the centralized Ethernet approach. This goal was achieved by developing a centralized Ethernet solution and analyzing the maximum number of nodes needed to provide the least amount of packet loss, delay and convergence times. The feasibility of our solution was determined by comparing it with the existing distributed solutions.

In this study, a Boson network simulator was employed to compare the centralized and the distributed Ethernet solutions in terms of delay, convergence times and packet loss. Although several network topologies were considered, focus was directed to three scenarios with 10, 19 and 38 operational nodes.

The results show that in terms of these parameters, the proposed centralized routing solution is best used in LANs with fewer nodes, whereas larger networks with more than 19 nodes should use a distributed approach.