Software Defined Networks is an emerging network paradigm which introduces programmability to networks and has the capability to dynamically configure the network. In a traditional IP based network the control part and the data forwarding elements are imposed in a single box that has very limited ability to configure the network, some vendor specific codes run on the forwarding elements to perform this task. SDN takes another approach by decoupling the controller part from the data plane part. It is the next generation Internet technology that solves the ossification of the Internet, along with creating massive innovations so that network management can be easily handled. In this paper, we are trying to explore the different layers, various protocols supported by SDN, along with discuss the numerous benefits of it.