ABSTRACT
SDN (Software Defined Networking) is the networking architecture that has gained attention of researchers in
recent past. It is the future of programmable networks. Traditional networks were very complex and difficult to
manage. SDN is going to change this by offering a standard interface (OpenFlow) between the control plane and
the networking devices (data plane). Its implementation is fully supported by software so that we can control the
behavior of networking devices through programmatic control. This programmatic control provides various new
ways to find breakpoints and failures in networking devices. Today SDN has become an important part of
networking, so it is important to emulate its behavior. SDN support virtualization which makes it scalable and
flexible. Data traffic resides in the data plane. The main function of intelligent controller is to decide the routing
policy and manage the traffic in data plane. So effectively SDN emerges as a networking architecture that has the
ability to solve all problems those were found in traditional architecture In this paper the authors discussed
historical perspective of SDN, languages that support SDN, emulation tools, security issues with SDN and
advantages that makes SDN suitable choice for today’s network.
Keywords: - OpenFlow, Security, Software Defined Networks, Virtualization.