Software-Defined Cluster: an SDN-Based Cluster architecture for IoT

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) represents an emerging paradigm that has gained relevance in both academia and industry. However, there are still adversities to be exploited in IOT applications, e.g., issues related to security, heterogeneity, and interoperability. Some IoT protocols use a broker to allow communication between heterogeneous devices and simplify network management. However, the broker is a single point of failure in the network. To circumvent this problem, some brokers support the construction of a cluster, allowing communication between devices with high availability. However, this solution depends on proxies or load balancers to manage the clients’ connections, i.e., there is still a single point of failure. This work proposes and implements the Software Defined Cluster (SDC), an SDN application that offers an alternative to clustering. SDC manages the connections between devices and brokers, through SDN, allowing high availability communication that avoids the central point of failure in IoT networks.