Implementation of an OpenFlow-based Access Point Virtual Switch for Monitoring and Virtualization of Legacy Wireless LAN

Network virtualization is an emerging technology for solving the rigidity of the physical network infrastructure. The innovative technique virtualizes all resources in the network, including the network links and nodes, and provides a number of virtual networks on a single network infrastructure. In order to realize a virtual network, a thorough and complete monitoring of all resources in the network should be performed firstly. OpenFlow is an open source stack for network virtualization. However, it is impossible to apply OpenFlow to AP-based legacy wireless LAN environment because OpenFlow targets ethernet-based LAN environment. In this paper, we implement an adaptor-styled virtual switch for AP-based wireless LAN through customizing the Open vSwitch which is a virtual switch of OpenFlow. The evaluation test results show that the implemented OpenFlow stack operates successfully. The implemented OpenFlow stack can now be plugged immediately in existing AP-based wireless LAN environment and plays network resource monitoring. In the future, we can develop wireless LAN virtualization applications on the wireless OpenFlow stack.