  Software-defined networking offers a device-agnostic programmable framework
to encode new network functions. Externally centralized control plane
intelligence allows programmers to write network applications and to build
functional network designs. OpenFlow is a key protocol widely adopted to build
programmable networks because of its programmability, flexibility and ability
to interconnect heterogeneous network devices. We simulate the functional
topology of a multi-node quantum network that uses programmable network
principles to manage quantum metadata for protocols such as teleportation,
superdense coding, and quantum key distribution. We first show how the OpenFlow
protocol can manage the quantum metadata needed to control the quantum channel.
We then use numerical simulation to demonstrate robust programmability of a
quantum switch via the OpenFlow network controller while executing an
application of superdense coding. We describe the software framework
implemented to carry out these simulations and we discuss near-term efforts to
realize these applications.
