SENDIM for Incremental Development of Cloud Networks

Abstract: Due to the limited and varying availability of cheap infrastructure and resources, cloud network systems and applications are tested in simulation and emulation environments prior to physical deployments, at different stages of development. Configuration management tools manage deployments and migrations across different cloud platforms, mitigating tedious system administration efforts. However, currently a cloud networking simulation cannot be migrated as an emulation, or vice versa, without rewriting and manually re-deploying the simulated application. This paper presents SENDIM (Sendim is a northeastern Portuguese town close to the Spanish border, where the rare Mirandese language is spoken), a Simulation, Emulation, aNd Deployment Integration Middleware for cloud networks. As an orchestration platform for incrementally building Software-Defined Cloud Networks (SDCN), SENDIM manages the development and deployment of algorithms and architectures the entire length from visualization, simulation, emulation, to physical deployments. Hence, SENDIM optimizes the evaluation of cloud networks.