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Application Programming Interfaces

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Application programming interfaces (APIs) Application programming interfaces (APIs) are medium to provide the details necessary for Software Defined Networks along with a highly robust and programmable infrastructure. APIs provide a path by which instruction sets can be sent to a device to program it. Software programmers can read API manual documentation to understand the device and then logically code the appropriate commands into their respective applications. With respect to SDN, APIs are broadly called "northbound" or "southbound," depending on their function they perform in the architecture. APIs which reside on a controller side and are used by SDN applications to send appropriate instructions to the controller platform are northbound, because all the communication takes place north of the controller. Southbound APIs of SDN reside on physical network devices such as switches. These APIs are used by the SDN controller to provide the network connectivity, with all the communication to and fro taking place south of the controller. [2] OpenFlow: The OpenFlow protocol is a key protocol in many SDN solutions. It is a standardized protocol for interacting with the forwarding behaviors of switches from multiple vendors. This provides us a way to control behavior of switches throughout our network dynamically and programmatically. In SDN the OpenFlow protocol has been implemented on both sides of the interface: network devices and control software. OpenFlow identifies network

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