Software Defined Wireless Networks: Unbridling SDNs

TLDR

Software‑defined networking promises to simplify configuration and resource management, attracting industry interest, yet its opportunities and adaptations for wireless infrastructure‑less environments remain unclear. The study seeks to evaluate SDN’s benefits for wireless infrastructure‑less networks, especially wireless personal area networks. The authors propose SDWN, an SDN‑based framework for wireless infrastructure‑less networks, and outline design guidelines.

Abstract

The software defined networking (SDN) paradigm promises to dramatically simplify network configuration and resource management. Such features are extremely valuable to network operators and therefore, the industrial (besides the academic) research and development community is paying increasing attention to SDN. Although wireless equipment manufacturers are increasing their involvement in SDN-related activities, to date there is not a clear and comprehensive understanding of what are the opportunities offered by SDN in most common networking scenarios involving wireless infrastructureless communications and how SDN concepts should be adapted to suit the characteristics of wireless and mobile communications. This paper is a first attempt to fill this gap as it aims at analyzing how SDN can be beneficial in wireless infrastructureless networking environments with special emphasis on wireless personal area networks (WPAN). Furthermore, a possible approach (called SDWN) for such environments is presented and some design guidelines are provided.