In modern network devices, dataplanes allows configuration for additional functionality. As a result, additional services may be implemented in a switch locally and without any interactions with a controller. It minimizes the response delay on network state changes.
Research directions in this area are as follows:

• Monitoring of link liveness using BFD protocol.
  It’s possible to check state of a connection between two switches without any interactions with a controller. It brings higher response rates to the monitoring service and minimizes control traffic in the network.
• Ways to accelerate performance of software switches.
  In comparison with hardware switches, software ones have higher functionality and flexibility, full support for OpenFlow protocol. They are preferred in cloud computing from hardware ones because of ability to be deployed remotely. In other hand, software switches have lower performance.

Publications:
Using hash functions to accelerate performance of OpenFlow switches. (in Russian)
Efficient FIB Representations on Distributed Platforms