On SDN-Driven Network Optimization and QoS Aware Routing Using Multiple Paths

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is a driving technology for enabling the 5th Generation of mobile communication (5G) systems offering enhanced network management features and softwarization. This paper concentrates on reducing the operating expenditure (OPEX) costs while <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$i$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) increasing the quality of service (QoS) by leveraging the benefits of queuing and multi-path forwarding in OpenFlow, <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$ii$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) allowing an operator with an SDN-enabled network to efficiently allocate the network resources considering mobility, and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$iii$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) reducing or even eliminating the need for over-provisioning. For achieving these objectives, a QoS aware network configuration and multipath forwarding approach is introduced that efficiently manages the operation of SDN enabled open virtual switches (OVSs). This paper proposes and evaluates three solutions that exploit the strength of QoS aware routing using multiple paths. While the two first solutions provide optimal and approximate optimal configurations, respectively, using linear integer programming optimization, the third one is a heuristic that uses Dijkstra short-path algorithm. The obtained results demonstrate the performance of the proposed solutions in terms of OPEX and execution time.