Switch Failure Detection in Software-Defined Networks V. Muthumanikandan,C. Valliyammai and B. Swarna Deepa Abstract SDN networks can have both legacy and OpenFlow network elements which are managed by the SDN controller. When the entire switch fails, leading to multiple link failures, addressing link failures may become inefficient, if it is addressed at the link level. Hence, an extensive approach to address the failure at the switch level, by including the failure rerouting code at the switch prior to the faulty switch, so that minimal configuration changes can be made and those changes can be made proactively. The objective of this work is to detect switch failures by including detection logic at the switch prior to the faulty switch. The link failure is examined in terms of a single link failure or failure of a subsequent switch. Link failure if it is due to failure of a subsequent switch, corrective action is taken proactively for all links which are affected by the switch failure. Keywords Link failure detection · Link failure protocols · Link failure recovery Software-defined networks · OpenFlow switch 1 Introduction Service providers can meet their end user’s expectation, only when there is good network quality. To provide the best recovery mechanism with expected reliability, the failures should be detected faster. Failures in Software-Defined Networks are due to, link or switch failure or connection failure between the standardized control plane and data plane. In SDN networks, though OpenFlow switches in data plane V. Muthumanikandan (B ) · C. Valliyammai · B. Swarna Deepa Department of Computer Technology, Madras Institute of Technology Campus, Anna University, Chennai, India e-mail: muthumanikandanbe@rocketmail.com C. Valliyammai e-mail: cva@annauniv.edu B. Swarna Deepa e-mail: swarnadeepa@gmail.com © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 J. D. Peter et al. (eds.), Advances in Big Data and Cloud Computing, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 750, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1882-5_13 155