This recipe emulates a data center with a single SDN controller managing 400 switches. The Python code recreates the network by manually producing the 1184 links across the 400 switches, controlled by the SDN controller c1 of type, RemoteController in 127.0.0.1. RemoteController is the default controller option of Mininet, which can be replaced by enterprise-grade controllers such as OpenDaylight or Floodlight. By adding each of the switches and links, the recipe creates the complex topology manually using Python.

Common topologies such as tree and linear topologies can be built without adding switches and links one-by-one. More topologies such as leaf-spine topologies too can be custom-built using Python for Mininet to emulate the large networks. However, even this large manual addition of switches and links can be automated; hence making this easier than it appears to be. Adding hosts to the topology is omitted in this recipe due to space.