A method of providing access control for a software defined network (SDN) controller includes establishing a cascaded flow of flow table entries by linking together flow table entries of flow tables that are installed at network resources and that apply to the same packets or network flows, analyzing the impact of configuration requests from one or more applications regarding the installation and/or removal of flow table entries on existing cascaded flows, and rejecting configuration requests if the installation and/or removal of flow table entries according to the configuration requests would destroy an existing cascaded flow. The SDN controller includes an interface for interacting with one or more applications that are installed to run at the control plane of the SDN atop the SDN controller.