Hi everyone,
I'm compiling a brief survey of OpenFlow/NOX architecture and I am
particularly interested in having a list of available control
applications (with some brief info about internals and OF messages
involved). For this reason I am exploring both NOX and OpenFlow
websites, and source distributions too (related to OF specifications
1.0), but I'm having some troubles to find all the things I heard
about. A brief list of what I found is as follows:

Shipped with NOX:
1. switch (coreapps/switch) and hub (coreapps/switch): the names are
self-explanatory (and the internals are what you expect from them)
2. discovery (netapps/discovery): briefly described in
http://noxrepo.org/manual/app-index.html, extensive use of LLDP
packets to detect links among OF switches and to monitor them
periodically.
3. routing (netapps/routing)
(http://noxrepo.org/manual/app-index.html): the name is a little bit
confusing because this application is very similar to "switch"
application. The only real difference is that forwarding decisions are
taken on the L3 addresses instead of L2 addresses; furthermore, it
uses the "authenticator" internally to keep track of host position and
it uses the "discovery" application to detect the topology (to run
shortest-path routing algorithm on it). So, no management of
OSPF/RIP/BGP packets/connections into NOX and no configuration of the
full-path (from source to dest across different datapaths) but
hop-by-hop behavior.

Additional applications/architectures:
4. OpenRoads (http://www.openflowswitch.org/wk/index.php/OpenFlow_Wireless):
it is "a platform for innovation and realistic deployment of service",
in particular on a mixed environment (fixed and wireless networks). It
supports host mobility and n-casting of traffic through different
wireless technologies.
5. Slicing (http://www.openflowswitch.org/wk/index.php/Slicing):
support to network virtualization, how to slice the network in many
virtual networks (as much independent and isolated as possible)
controlled by different NOX/etc controllers.
6. GEC3 demo (http://www.openflowswitch.org/wk/index.php/GEC3_OpenFlow_Demo):
in my opinion this is a mix of all previous points.
7. many projects to add functionalities to OF switch (both software
and hardware, e.g. SNMP, NetFPGA, MPLS, Spanning Tree, etc.),
described on OF blog/wiki.

Something not yet "completely" found:
8. Ethane (described into White Paper,
http://www.openflowswitch.org/documents/openflow-wp-latest.pdf, and in
a previous paper, "Ethane: taking control of the enterprise"): I know
the system from papers and it is reported as the first example in the
white paper, but I am not able to find sources or more detailed
informations (especially on what OF messages are used).

Controllers:
9. NOX (http://noxrepo.org)
10. SNAC (http://www.openflowswitch.org/wp/snac/)
11. Reference controller

Publications:
http://www.openflowswitch.org/wk/index.php/OpenFlow_based_Publications

So, this is a list of what I've found over the Internet. Is there any
other effort (papers/projects) which I did not mention? Please let me
know (and thanks in advance).

Best regards,
Luca

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