OpenFlow-based Migration and Management of the TouIX IXP

The Internet eXchange Points (IXP) are essential for the Internet evolution as they empower high bandwidth low latency and inexpensive local traffic peering as opposed to transit traffic. On the other side, Software Defined Networking, or SDN for short (and its pre-dominant realization, the OpenFlow protocol) enables more dynamic network programmability to control network behaviour via open interfaces, as opposed to the legacy closed-box solutions and proprietary-defined interfaces. This paper then reports the work that has been done to migrate the TouIX IXP located in Toulouse (France) from a traditional to a full OpenFlow IXP. It especially describes how switches have been selected, configured and installed, and presents the management tools that have been developed, together with performance and service measurements and evaluations. To the best of our knowledge, from may 2015, TouSIX (the SDN evolution of TouIX) is the first Internet Exchange Provider in Europe to fully leverage OpenFlow for its day-to-day operations.