  In a data center network, for example, it is quite often to use controllers
to manage resources in a centralized man- ner. Centralized control, however,
imposes a scalability problem. In this paper, we investigate the use of
multiple independent controllers instead of a single omniscient controller to
manage resources. Each controller looks after a portion of the network only,
but they together cover the whole network. This therefore solves the
scalability problem. We use flow allocation as an example to see how this
approach can manage the bandwidth use in a distributed manner. The focus is on
how to assign components of a network to the controllers so that (1) each
controller only need to look after a small part of the network but (2) there is
at least one controller that can answer any request. We outline a way to
configure the controllers to fulfill these requirements as a proof that the use
of devolved controllers is possible. We also discuss several issues related to
such implementation.
