(IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications,

Vol. 7, No. 11, 2016

Software-Defined Networks (SDNs) and Internet of

Things (IoTs): A Qualitative Prediction for 2020
Sahrish Khan Tayyaba Naila Sher Afzal Khan Wajeeha Naeem
Department of Computer Science, University of Management Sciences Department of Computer Science,
COMSATS Institute of Information and Information Technology, COMSATS Institute of Information
Technology, Kotli, AJK Technology
Islamabad, Pakistan Islamabad, Pakistan
Yousra Asim
Munam Ali Shah Department of Computer Science, Muhammad Kamran
Department of Computer Science, COMSATS Institute of Information Department of Distance Continuing &
COMSATS Institute of Information Technology Computer Education,
Technology Islamabad, Pakistan University of Sindh,
Islamabad, Pakistan Hyderabad, Pakistan

Abstract—The Internet of Things (IoT) is imminent IoT devices are capable of observing, analysing and taking
technology grabbing industries and research attention with a fast intelligent decisions based on collected information from the
stride. Currently, more than 15 billion devices are connected to surroundings and manipulation of the underlying network. The
the Internet and this number is expected to reach up to 50 billion IoT devices are deployed according to the customised task
by 2020. The data generated by these IoT devices are immensely with specific applications; forming a domain specific IoTs
high, creating resource allocation, flow management and security network. This domain specific applications and service
jeopardises in the IoT network. Programmability and centralised attribute a horizontal view of the IoT network such as
control are considered an alternative solution to address IoT appliances and applications for smart home management,
issues. On the other hand, a Software Define Network (SDN)
smart health care unit implanted on the body or wearable
provides a centralised and programmable control and
sensors for health monitoring. The domain-based services can
management for the underlying network without changing
existing network architecture. This paper surveys the state of the leverage the benefits of pervasive and ubiquitous computing
art on the IoT integration with the SDN. A comprehensive review through the independent services horizontal platform.
and the generalised solutions over the period 2010-2016 is With the immense increase in IoT devices huge amount of
presented for the different communication domains. data is generated and collected which impede monitoring,
Furthermore, a critical review of the IoT and the SDN management, controlling and securing IoT devices in a
technologies, current trends in research and the futuristic
heterogeneous network and become a critical issue for
contributing factors form part of the paper. The comparative
researchers and developers. Traditional network does not
analysis of the existing solutions of SDN based IoT
implementation provides an easy and concise view of the
completely support heterogeneity, which limits IoT benefits
emerging trends. Lastly, the paper predicts the future and full realisation. In addition, the services demand and
presents a qualitative view of the world in 2020. customers require fast development and deployment that is
still an issue in a traditional network. The innovation in the
Keywords—SDN; IoT; Integration of SDN-IoT; WSN; LTE; legacy network is very slow due to the proprietary nature of
M2M communication; NFV devices. Therefore, a change in the traditional network
infrastructure and devices is mandatory to realise full benefits
I. INTRODUCTION of IoTs. IoT can leverage full benefits from the integrated
The emergence of new technologies and communication architecture of such technologies. The most attracted
networks offer new connectivity scenarios among every technologies in this domain are Software Defined Networking
physical object. Machine-to-Machine (M2M), Device-to- (SDN), and Network Function Virtualization (NFV).
Device (D2D), Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V), wireless sensor SDN is an emerging technology that can meet the need of
network, actuators, smartphone, embedded devices and even current IoT requirements of heterogeneity and flexibility. It
connections among infrastructures are developing new provides a centralised control and global view of the whole
connectivity scenarios. Moreover, these devices will be network. SDN decouple the control functionality from the
allegedly connected to the Internet and will ultimately create a forwarding plane and program network service sitting above
heterogeneous system of interconnected objects; called the the controller (control Plane). The centralised management
Internet of Thing (IoT), and in broader sense Internet of facilitates optimisation and configuration of a network in an
Everything (IoE) [1]. The IoT devices are generally sensor efficient and automated manner and provides interoperability
node, actuator, RFID tags and wireless communicating among heterogeneous IoT network. This control plane
devices connected to the Internet in a smart environment. The centralization can provide a secure architecture for IoT

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Vol. 7, No. 11, 2016

network, e.g., smart home security applications prevent (OPEX) [2]. For example, the transition from IPv4 to IPv6,
unauthorised user access of the smart appliance etc. IoT is started more than a decade ago and still largely incomplete,
growing with a very fast stride that new trends and bears witness to this challenge, while in fact, IPv6 represented
technologies, protocols, architecture, management, and merely a protocol update. To overcome the existing
security solutions in the context of IoT are formulated within a architecture, SDN is considering as the best alternate.
short period. There is a research gap in addressing the IoT
integration with different networking solutions especially, In SDN, the control plane is decoupled from forwarding
leveraging the benefits of SDN. plane and communication between two planes is done through
using Southbound and Northbound APIs. SDN is basically
In this paper, we highlight different studies which provide layer architecture consists of three layers 1). Device layer or
SDN based solutions for IoT technologies. We survey the data plane 2). Control plane and 3). Application layer. The
literature over the period 2010-2016, by focusing the attention customer needs are abstracted over application layer which is
on different aspects of the IoT merger with the SDN. The communicated to the controller via Northbound APIs e.g.,
organisation of this paper is as follows. Section II provides RESTfull API. The control layer or controller is centralised
some background of the IoT and the SDN and architecture of part of the SDN network and act as a brain of the network.
two contributing domains, i.e., SDN and the IoT and the The controller manages the whole network and possesses a
protocols for the SDN. In section III, a comprehensive global view of the network. All applications/programs run
literature is provided for the existing solution of the SDN and above the controller. Many controllers are in the market from
the IoT integration. Section IV provides a detailed review of its inception such as ONOS, Open daylight, Floodlight, NOX
the existing solution, providing a comparative analytics of the [3], POX, Trema etc. SDN controller define rule for the
existing integration solutions. In section V, market and incoming flows from the data plane. The controller
research trends and a qualitative prediction for 2020 are given. communicates with the devices in the data plane via
Section VI concludes the study. Southbound APIs, most common and recognised is OpenFlow
(OF). The layered architecture of SDN is shown in Figure 1
II. BACKGROUND RELATED STUDIES
SDN do not increase the performance of the network
A. Background rather it provides flexibility in network configuration and
The use of computing devices and communication resource management. On the contrary, SDN can lead to
technologies are growing exponentially with the decline in performance degradation in case of providing high level of
cost and size of hardware and software. Vendors and abstraction
organisations are digging new domain in search of finding
1) SDN architecture
new ways of flexible computing and communication. IoT and
SDN is a layered architecture, consisting of three basic
SDNs are two complete different communication and network
layers; application/services layer, controller layer (control
domain whose merger is seeking for benefiting human kinds
plane), and data plane layer called forwarding layer consisting
and developing smart systems. As the IoT implementation
of forwarding devices. These SDN layers communicate with
expectancy exceeds the limits of traditional network e.g.,
each other via open APIs called Northbound Interface (NI)
Virtual Private Network (VPN), the SDN promise to hold the
API and Southbound Interface (SI) API [5]. To identify the
traditional network with new service demands. At this stage,
different elements of an SDN as clearly as possible, we now
technology shift is highly intention grabbing a task from the
present the essential terminology used throughout this work
researchers and developers in industries and organisations.
The two domains and their architecture are totally dissimilar. a) SDN architectural components
In this section, an architectural detail of both domains is SDN is a layered architecture, consisting of three basic
presented to grab the underlying functionality for the merging layers; application/services layer, a controller layer, and data
of IoT in SDN. plane layer called forwarding layer consisting of forwarding
B. SDN Architecture and protocol devices. These SDN layers communicate with each other via
open APIs called Northbound Interface (NI) API and
In a traditional network, the devices and the equipment are Southbound Interface (SI) API [5].
usually proprietary entities, are physically distributed and
control function is hard-coded. The network operator has to do SDN layered components are described to
configuration of the individual network device as per service
layer agreements (SLAs) and cannot be programmed  Application layer (AP): The application plane also
otherwise. The complexity increases due to the vertical called management plane consist of applications that
integration of network architecture. The control plane and the leverage the functions offered by the NI to implement
data plane are bundled inside the networking devices, network control and operation logic. Essentially, a
reducing flexibility and hindering innovation and evolution of management application defines the policies, which are
the networking infrastructure. Any change in the network is ultimately translated to southbound-specific
expensive in term of time, and cost. The cost comes in term of instructions that program the behaviour of the
capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operational expenditure forwarding devices.

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 (IJACSA) International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications,
Vol. 7, No. 11, 2016

installed in the forwarding devices by the SDN

controllers implementing the southbound protocols.
Management/
Applicat
Applicati
ion
Applic
ation
Application  Data Plane (DP)/Forwarding Plane: Forwarding
plane devices (routers, switches, gateways etc.) are
interconnected through a physical medium such as
wireless radio channels or wired cables. And defined a
Control physical interconnection within a network
Network OS Plane
SDN has many applications in other networks such as in
management, configuration and reconfiguration of the
network in a flexible manner. SDNs provide a fine-grained
control with high quality of services. The SDN controller
flexibly manages the flow forwarding state in the data plane
Data plane (router & switches) by having a global view of the network.
SDN controller provides programmability for the data plane.
Physical Controller is logically centralised entity but physically
line distributed [10]. SDN is believed to provide its user with a
separate networking slice by utilising the concept of
Control
virtualization. NFV is considered as a complementary
Fig. 1. SDN Architecture technology for SDN. SDN utilised the virtual view of the
network status and provide different applications based on this
 Northbound Interface (NI): The interaction between virtualized view. NFV can be implemented as an application
application AP and control plane is provided through above the CP. Network functions can be virtualized in NFV.
NI. The Network Operating System (NOS) facilitate The next generation network architecture is quite dependent
application developers to coordinate through these NI on such technologies which can facilitate high data
APIs. Typically, an NI APIs abstracts the low-level transmission, spectral efficiency, resource allocation and
instruction sets and implementation of forwarding network management for fulfilling growing need of the
devices. So far NI APIs is not well studied. Generally, customer demands. One solution to such demand is the
RESTFull APIs are used as an interface between programmability of the network and dynamic allocation of
applications and control plane. resources, which can be provided by network virtualization. In
virtualization, user specific network is called slice, which
 Control Plane (CP): Control plane is the decoupled provides new values to user requirements and applications. In
entity from the distributed forwarding devices and the next section, we will highlight the detailed architecture of
logically centralised on a server. CP programs the IoT network, which is again layered architecture of connecting
forwarding devices through southbound interfaces. CP the physical object with the Internet.
defines rules/instruction set for forwarding devices
hence control plane is the ‗‗network brain‘‘ and all
control logic rests in the applications and controllers,
which form the control plane. Many SDN controllers
are available in the market such as NOX[3],
OpenDaylight[5], Ryu[6].
 Southbound Interface (SI): Southbound interfaces
provide a communication protocol between CP and
forwarding device though the SI instruction set. Well
established SI protocol help controller in programming
forwarding devices and formalise rules for interaction
between the two planes (CP & DP). Some examples
are OpenFlow [7], Forwarding and Control Elements
(ForCES) [8] , Protocol-oblivious forwarding (POF)
[9].
 Forwarding Devices (FD): Network core devices
either software based or hardware based performs
fundamental network operations. The forwarding
devices act on the basis of rules/instruction set Fig. 2. Overall IoT scenario
provided by CP/controller on the incoming
flow/packets (e.g., forward, drop, rewrite some 2) IoT architecture
header). These instructions are defined by southbound We are living in the era of connected objects where
interfaces such as OpenFlow [7], ForCES [8] and are devices can communicate with the physical world and capable

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of taking decisions due to the data analytics. The main factor

behind this swift shift is the advancement in the
microelectronics, telecommunication networks, and use of
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags attached to the
physical objects. When these objects are connected to the
Internet, they form a network of interconnected objects called
IoT. The IoT is simply the point in time when more things or
objects are connected to the Internet than people. [11]. As the
boundaries of connected objects are not limited to certain
technology, diverse ranges of objects connect and
communicate with each other using a different communication
protocol, resulting in the heterogeneous network as visible in
Fig. 2. IoT devices are used to sense, collect, process, infer,
transmit, notify, manage, and store data. The IoT helps in
building a smart environment. Few examples are home safety
and management system, smart electricity monitoring in
electricity grids, in-car system from road traffic monitoring to
control function and safety measures in advances, health
monitoring to smart building automatically controlled heating,
venting, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, security
systems, disaster management, weather forecasting etc. are
variant domain and provide a powerful control in handling
daily life activities. There are billions of devices connected to Fig. 3. IoT Architecture
the heterogeneous network. These entire domains have
different architectural details as per the specified functional  Middleware layer: Different IoT devices in a domain
requirement and still not converged on are not converged on a may be different but devices can interact with a
single reference model [12], which add complexity in the compatible/same device. This layer translates the
heterogeneity of a network. However, the general architecture message of one service information without concern
of IoT is shown in the Fig. 3 for the hardware detail. Middleware layer is associated
with service management, addressing and naming of
a) IoT architectural components the requested service.
For any network, layered architecture ensures flexibility
Beside these main layers, there are many components,
and capability of invocation of new services in the network,
which play important role in IoT information collection,
IoT architecture follows layered architecture. Due to varying
processing and management. We define these components.
IoT domain, architecture and contributing components are not
Edge services component is responsible for delivering
converged however most successful IoT architecture is IoT-A
information through the Internet. These services may be
[13]. Many other IoT architecture models are also in the
domain name service, Content Delivery Network, firewall,
market but most common is ―four-layer architecture‖
load balancer etc. Analytics services component guide and
 Perception layer: Perception layer is physical object automates the process of data analysis, discovery, and
layer consisting of sensors, actuator, RFIDs, mobile visualisation. The Process management services help in
devices, motes, blue tooth etc. This layer collects the managing the workflow of the information processing and
data from the environment and transmits on the edge of connects devices with their respective services. Device identity
the network i.e. gateway or sink. services identify a user registers service on a device.
Authentication service enables the authentication of a
 Network layer: This layer is responsible for registered user with its associated service. Service Oriented
transmitting data from physical objects to the Architecture (SOA) helps in providing architectural abstraction
gateway/edge of the network for further processing on from the underlying detail and provides required services.
the collected information. Different transmission
technologies contribute to the heterogeneity of IoT Initially, the Internet was distinctly established over
such as ZigBee, blue tooth, Wi-Fi etc. TCP/IP suit and provided support for a large number of the
connected computer. However, TCP/IP does not support
 Application layer: This layer deal with the heterogeneous network. Therefore, the TCP/IP is not suitable
application/services of the user demand by for IoTs. Hence, the heterogeneity of connected device in IoT
manipulating the information collected from the environment is creating unprecedented complexity and
perception layer and processed in the processing functional diversity.
system.

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SDN-Controller A. SDN Based D2D communication in LTE

Long Term Evaluation (LTE) is a communication standard
evolved from Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)
known as UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication
Application Server
System) and introduces Multi Input multi-output (MIMO) to
ensure high-speed data transmission at a higher data rate of
300Mbps peak downlink and 75 Mbps peak uplink [22]. It
also provides connectivity of cellular network with the
Internet using IP network equipment LTE support high data
required services such as Voice over IP (VoIP), Video
conferencing and multimedia streaming in a cellular network.
It uses multiple radio access techniques and uses both Time
Division Duplex (TDD) and FDD for downlink and uplink
UE high data rate communication and improves spectrum
P-GW efficiency. The working component of LTE are User
eNB Equipment (UE), eNodeB (access point), and EPC i.e.
Fig. 4. SDN based LTE architecture Evolved Packet Core. UE is actually a mobile used to link the
user with the access network. The access network is an
C. Related Studies Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access. A general
architecture for SDN based LTE is shown in Figure 4.
SDNs and IoTs are a hot topic and grabbing the attention
of industry and market. Many comprehensive studies are done LTE, a major contributor in IoT, promise high data rate
by the research communities to look into the detail and low latency but despite these facts, LTE technologies
perspective; implications, use cases, and technological encounter many issues of centralised control, Scalability and
demand in both domains. Kreutz et al. [2] present a QoS challenges in the network. Centralised management and
comprehensive study on SDN. The authors provide a detail spectrum adjustment by operator minimises the automatic and
and all-inclusive on SDN, SDN evolution from programmable dynamic control and management of the cellular network. In
networks to SDN architecture, protocols, application, use case this context, several studies have been conducted based on the
scenarios and future research trends etc. Nunes et al. in [3], integration of LTE with SDN. In [14], LTE network
discuss the past, present and future of programmable network reconfiguration is proposed using SDN based on D2D
based on SDN. SDN layered taxonomy is presented in [4]. communication devices and ensure Quality of Experience
Network innovation in the context of SDN using OpenFlow is (QoE) which is measured on the basis of Mean Opinion Score
dealt in [5]. (MOS). Liu et al. proposed an algorithm for multi-tier LTE
network reconfiguration for downlink and uplink based on a
An ample survey on IoT is presented by Al-Fuqaha et al.
D2D communication protocol in case of congestion on the
in [6], mentioning every domain of IoT, application, issues
nearest eNBs. The parameters used to measure performance
and scenarios. Similarly, Xu et al. [7] presents state-of-the-art
are download speed and waiting for the delay because of
on IoT. The future industrial perspective of IoT is presented in
congestion in the adjacent eNBs. Savarese et al. in [15]
[8]. The study of IoT applications is done in [9]. The merger
proposed a Flexible approach for the reconfiguration and
of IoT and SDN is also studied in many research articles as in
resource allocation in LTE environment when acting as IoT by
[10] which presents the SDN and virtualization in IoT domain.
observing context and connects various types of monitoring
However, a detailed survey on the integration of IoT in SDN
terminal devices and the Internet without human interaction.
requires attention from the research community.
They use context-aware information and geophysical location
III. LITERATURE REVIEW for their proposed framework architecture for heterogeneous
M2M devices over LTE/4G network with SDN controller and
Since SDN and IoT are in their infancy, still there are context-Aware Application (CAA) running over M2M server
many problems and IoT use cases that are not completely identifies the failure of certain eNB and informs SDN about
realised. Even though IoT has a vast implementation in the status. In CellSDN [16], Erran et al. proposed a cellular
conventional routine creating scenarios with almost every architecture based on SDN in which attribute-based policies
network technology to extract information, bringing are formulated for individual user in the LTE network and
improvement in daily life and developing a smart ecosystem. gain fine grain control over the network. CellSDN also
In this section, we undergo an extensive review of the existing proposed for SDN application for deep packet inspection by
solution of IoTs based on SDN. Few of IoT implementation in the local cell agent running in each switch. This local agent in
the context of SDN based control and management is CellSDN can increase scalability by reducing the excessive
discussed below. SDN integration in current trends of IoT is a load on the controller.
research question till yet. In this regard, many studies have
been generated in the campuses and on the industrial level to As controller offload some of the measurement task to the
get full advantage of programmability from SDN and local agent which can perform local control operations. In
Virtualization from NFV.

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[26], M. H. Kabir proposed cluster-based SDN controller on NOX, around 30k flow request per second are processed.
architecture for a cellular network where the cellular area is For this purpose, distributed controller solutions for SDN were
divided into clusters controlled by a cluster controller where proposed such as Onix, Open Network Operating System
major functionalities are provided by SDN controller. Radio (ONOS), and DevoFlow etc. In IoT, this traffic flow
access related activities are controlled by SDN controller, management is important in term of heavy data especially
which reduces the complexity in the based station, and load video and audio streaming, multimedia contents and online
monitoring and session controlling is done through the gaming etc. which need extra care for defining management
controller's head in the clustered area. The cluster head rules and policies.
controllers communicate with each other via controller
services. In [17], the author presented a detailed review of the
integration of Information Centric Network (ICN) in SDN.
Legacy IoT mostly using IEEE802.15.4, ZigBee or The integration of ICN and SDN over IoT devices is not an
6LoWPAN (IPv6 over low power wireless Local Personal easy task because the significant solution for security and
Area Network) protocol as communication protocol but management is lacking in realising Sensing as a Service
6LoWPAN protocol does not fulfil the required bandwidth (SaaS) in SDN based IoT devices. A. El-Mougy proposed
need of IoT devices and do not create an efficient routing. An cloud application management in ICN using SDN CP. This
architecture framework is presented in [27], which uses SDN integrated 5G/LTE network in SDN can also suffer from
as the management platform for 6LoWPAN devices. SDN security risk of single point failure, minimization of
based Management Framework for IoT Devices is proposed in transmission rate due to shared spectrum. In [18], Usman et al.
[28]. The author used SDN controller and three reference proposed a hierarchal architecture for sensor IoT integration
point for communication between different network entities into 5G/LTE network using SDN domain controller. The
and SDN Controller and focus on the transaction between architecture is monitored by central controller and other
M2M. domain controller interacts with this central controller, this
central controller dynamically allocates resource leveraging a
The communication between the private network and the
D2D communication.
public network is done through Network Address Translator
(NAT), which exhaust when the number of devices increases B. Middleware solution based on SDN
in the network due to its centralised nature. Distributed NAT Different requirements for the two technologies are
Traversal using SDN is used for managing IoT traffic by creating hazards for communication between IoT and SDNS.
distributing the load on the SDN-enabled devices/switches and In [19], the interoperability of heterogeneous network in an
in result transmission delay is reduced [29]. The legacy NAT IoT perspective is discussed and an architecture for
traversal scheme has many disadvantages as increased communication between IoT and SDN environment is
workload on the relay server, or inflexible P2P proposed using OMG Data Distributed Services model (OMG
communication as required by IoTs, and performance DDS) as middleware in which publisher/subscriber message
degradation due packet modification and processing on each are used for communication between different entities in a
packet. But this is not an efficient way as the central SDN heterogeneous mode and provide scalability of a network.
controller may also suffer the aforementioned problems in the Similarly, CASSOWARY in [20], a provide a middleware
NAT and NAT Traversal schemes also there is a single point architecture which helps in providing context aware
of failure due to a centralised server. communication in smart buildings using SDN based
Due to the huge amount of data produced by IoT devices controller. CASSOWARY enables smart devices and SDN
and billions or devices are connected to IoT network, flow uses information to smartly handle the building HVAC system
management is not an easy task. In cased of SDN based IoT on the basis of distance and presence of activities or tenant in
architecture, where the controller is responsible for making that environment.
flow rules, their installation at the gateway incur delay and In [21], Qin et al. enhanced the idea of Multi-network
degrade the performance of the network. This flow rule controller architecture for heterogeneous IoT network based
installation is hype when flows are installed reactively on on SDN controller for a multi-network environment such as
demand. In [30], Bull et al. proposed pre-emptive flow rule network accessing Wi-Fi, WiMAX, LTE, ZigBee and another
installation by monitoring and learning the periodic behaviour cellular network at the campus level and evaluated the
of IoT network. In this proposed scheme, the flow rules are performance by measuring delay, jitter and throughput. MINA
installed before the arrival of flow in the network by observing is basically a middleware whose working principle is self-
the flow history i.e. by learning switch techniques. observing and adaptive, and manage the pervasive
According to Cisco report, due to the immensely heterogeneous network. MINA takes advantage of SDN
increasing IoT/mobile device and connection, Global mobile principle for flow matching and management. MINA follows
data traffic reached 3.7 Exabyte per month at the end of 2015, SDN like layered architecture, which reduces the semantic gap
up from 2.1 Exabyte per month at the end of 2014 [31]. With between IoT and task definitions in a multi-network
such an immensely increased volume of data and traffic, the environment. The architecture is modelled using a Genetic
single centralised controller is not sufficient to handle algorithm and network calculus. Flow shares the same node
generated traffic and flow management. An SDN centralised resources and network is optimised for this resource sharing in
controller suffer from processing pressure as only a limited this architecture.
amount of flow can be processed by a single controller such as

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WU et al. in [22], presents UbiFlow framework which In this context of mesh network connectivity, an
provides the integration of the SDN and the IoT. UbiFlow interesting instigating architecture for a wireless mesh
proposed an efficient flow control and mobility management network (WMN) on the basis of OpenFlow was given by
in urban multi-networks using SDN distributed controllers. In Delay et al. in [23]. In this paper, the author suggests the
UbiFlow architecture, IoT network is partitioned into small seamless mobility in the WMN by the use of OpenFlow. The
network chunks/cluster in which each partition is controlled KAUMesh test-bed allows the use of OpenFlow in WMN and
by a physically distributed SDN controller. The IoT devices in provides an efficient and flexible mobility solution. In this
each partition may be connected to the different access point solution, the mesh router is OpenFlow-enabled and contains
for different data requests. These distributed controllers multiple physical wireless cards. Multi-hop connectivity is
coordinate to provide flow scheduling, mobility management, achieved by using OLSR and data path uses local sockets to
optimized access point selection in a consistent, reliable and communicate with the control path component. Monitoring
scalable control order, and provide fault tolerance and load and Control Server (MCS) and NOX act as a controller
balancing for multi-network IoT. The per-device flow interface and communication is done on a secure channel and
management and optimised access point selection are based on handles all the flow rules. The association database contains a
the multi-network capacity performed by the SDN controller, list of stations and the Mesh Access Point (MAPs).
which partition the network using network calculus in the Connectivity graph can be obtained from gateways or may be
UbiFlow architecture. Ubiflow architecture is shown in Fig. 5 from the QoS metrics. NOX handle routing task based on the
information gathered from MCS. New rules are installed using
A representative summary of existing SDN based topology database in the data plane. The associated station
management Solutions for IoT given in survey are presented complies IEEE802.11standards and handover is done using
in Table 1. IEEE802.21 standards. The OpenFlow protocol is used for
C. SDN for wireless sensor based IoT devices setting up the flow tables, HTTP/XML for the communication
Wireless sensor network defines intercommunication of between MCS and NOX and IEEE 802.21. This architecture
spatially distributed sensor node which is generally used as is important as mesh connectivity play an important role in
monitoring agent in the disaster areas, health care, IoT scenario. However, the mobility model is suitable only for
environmental condition, industrial monitoring and earth small scale while IoT implication is seen in larger context.
sensing etc. The most common contributor in the IoTs is The algorithm for the association of flow node and flow path
sensor nodes. Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is deployed in in this architecture is undefined for MSN.
different scenarios according to specific need e.g., sensor In the context of WSN management, few protocols are
deployment for a volcanic study to deep-sea measurement, in proposed such as SDN-WISE[24], Software-Defined Wireless
the disaster area to dark forests reading throughout day and Sensor Network Framework [25] and leverage SDN
night. Many research articles articulated the role of wireless programmability in the WSNs. The architectural components
sensor nodes in smart ecosystem and contribution of of this approach consist of a Base Station (BS) and several
telecommunication. However, tremendous growth in IoT sensor nodes. SDN controller operates on BS took a routing
devices/sensor node, application, collection and analytics on decision on the lieu of dumb sensor nodes. Sensor nodes
data need intelligence services and new paradigms. Our focus contain flow table as in the SDN populated by controller.
in this study is the integration of IoT component with SDN, so
we collect reading based on WSN in the context of SDN. WSN integration in SDN is seen in [41] with a three-layer
Mostly sensor node topology is a mesh topology or a peer-to- architecture. It consists of master node/controller node, central
peer topology; management and control in constrained node (OpenFlow enabled switch) and a normal node. The
environment are always a vigorous research area. master node defines a routing policy for the normal node. The
author et.al uses flowVisor as virtualization engine to make
Database
independent user slice in between controller and switch. Data
Controlle forwarding is done by OpenFlow switch. The configuration
Admin SDN
SDN r and management are done by OpenFlow protocol, which also
Controlle
Task-Resource
Controlle
r
SDN identifies the existing routing protocol, and work in
r Controlle
Matching
Network
Device
DB DB
r
congruence. The placement of central node is important. In
Solution spec this proposal, the distance is calculated based on cosine
Flow scheduling
Task Service
DB DB
similarity formula. The central node locates in the physical
Communication Layer
centre of the cluster architecture, helps in maintaining network
Internet gateway topology and help increasing network convergence. They
name their architecture as SDWSN. Neighbouring node status
is taken into account for the assigning role. Even though the
author has verified their architecture through comparing its
result with existing WSN protocol and find improvement in
the result; the conceptual details are not very clear.
In [28], Miyazaki et al. proposed an architecture for
reconfigurable WSN network on the basis of customer need
Fig. 5. UbiFlow architecture

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by using role injection and delivery mechanism. The role information and coordinates this information to the controller,
compiler generates scenarios which are injected through which defined rules/policies for better management. Each
wireless communication. Field programmable array (FPGA) individual node computes RSSI factor for measuring network
and a microcontroller unit (MCU) carry the change in the resource (local battery level and hop count). The rule or
sensor nodes. The communication is done on the basis of policies are defined by a controller implemented on a limited
sensor attribute. The role compiler is at the base station. The portion of incoming packets to safe space. However, this
architecture consists of base stations (BSs), reconfigurable architecture does not support any concrete OS for SDN based
node and a server which contain role injection and delivery IoTs and the solution for wireless infrastructure based network
mechanism components. They name their architecture as does not fit in the infrastructure-less plethora of WSN. A
SDWSN. Neighbouring node status is taken into account for summary of SDN based solutions for sensors networks is
an assigning role on the fly and sensor behaviour can be presented in Table 2.
manipulated as per role description.
D. Software defined Radio
IoT devices with constraint resources are the main The management of lower layer of the protocol stack is
consideration while forming any architecture or protocol. The already introduced as Software Defined Radio (SDR) for
increased efficiency of sensor node communication is directly managing the underlying complexity of hardwired
associated with energy management. Majority research implementation of the wireless network. The constituent entity
focuses on sleep/active mode for energy restoration in the of wireless communication is radio frequencies. With the
WSN. Wang et al. in [29] presented an SDN based algorithm increasing complexity and aggregated telecommunications
―Energy Consumed uniformly Connected K-Neighborhood‖ technology and Radio Access Network (RAN) cross
(EC-CKN) called as SDN-ECCKN. In this architecture, a functionality is hard to obtain the desired result and need to
controller node calculates the overall energy of WSN. SDN- physically intervene in radio technologies. By providing
ECCKN helps in retaining energy of each node and minimises software-based radio manipulation, distinct management
the broadcast messages from the individual node. flexibility can uplift network performance. Constantly
The multi-purpose sensor network is also addressed in increasing IoT devices in billion and trillion and their
[30]. Leontiadis et al. exploited NFV for sharing single communication need hardware independent implementation of
infrastructure for many applications in a sensor network. They network and radio connectivity.
proposed a framework for multiple application scenarios on a SoftRAN [33] is proposed by Tomovic et al. which uses
common build infrastructure. Each node has an abstraction SDN principle in 4G LTE network. A centralised control
layer for a shared hardware which works on the overlay plane abstracts the whole RAN into the geographical area.
network and creates multiple virtual sensor networks (VNS). This Geographical area acts as a big base station where many
The bridge between application and hardware is written in radio elements i.e. physical base station are deployed under
TinyOS operating system. This is informally an idea of the control of the centralising controller; who manage radio
separating sensor node hardware plane for application oriented resource allocation in the big base station.
overlay VNS.
The author proposed resource allocation in the form grid
In [31], the author proposed an architecture for the of three dimensions i.e. space, time, and frequency slots. The
integration of WSN with SDN controller. A local controller interaction between controller and radio element is done
in each sensor node is responsible for MAC forwarding and through APIs. Radioelement backup the information in the
some local routing decisions. A centralised controller is control plane. Based on this information, the controller
responsible for the long-term decision. In a sensor network, decides to allocate resource in the domain of frequency, time
topology information collection is main challenge and and space slot. Radioelement takes some of its decision based
different approaches are used for the information collection on local information to manage the delay between controller
like packet trace, which contains detail information and Link and radioelement. Hence global network decisions are taken
Quality Estimation (LQE). The author suggested using by controller local small resource management is done by the
lightweight LQE for collecting topology information, which radio element.
can provide SDN controller with a global view of the network.
This paper also proposed to take advantage of virtualization of SoftCell [34] incorporate SDN in the cellular core network
SDN and change the object bytecode on the fly for commodity and provide fine-grained policies for an LTE network. The
hardware. The SDN logical manipulation of virtualization and contributing components in SoftCell architecture are i).
intelligent algorithms is used to get better IoT application and Controller, ii). Access switches, iii). Core switches and iv).
traffic analyser. Many of the implementation scenarios are Middle-boxes. The controller defines policies and implement
also presented by the author. through switch level rules through middle-boxes. Traffic
classification is done on the access switches. Every access
Software Defined Wireless network (SDWN) [64], is an switch has a local agent which caches each UE profile. In this
early effort for providing feasibility for the implementation of way, local agent control of packet classification is access
SDN for the wireless network. Costanzo.et al. presents switch and undue burden over the controller is reduced.
architecture for Low Rate Personal Area Network (LR-PAN) Controller has a global view and defined rules on the match
management and flexible resource utilisation using SDN fields i.e. policy tag, hierarchical IP address and UE
controller over the sink node. Sink node gathers topological identifiers.

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The location and policies are embedded into packet header A. SDN based IoT Management
to avoid reclassification of the traffic. Core switches connect In a heterogeneous network like in IoT, where diverse
to the Internet through gateways fine-grained policies ensure technologies are interplaying and exchange information. In
through multi-dimensional aggregation and packet such networks, the management becomes very complex. The
classification in asymmetric topology. configuration, reconfiguration, resource allocation and even
An integration of SDN and SDR in 5G network is the pattern of intercommunication becomes extremely
proposed in [35] called Hybrid SDN/SDR architecture . The difficult. SDN, due to its decoupled nature, separate control
proposal architecture is cross layer combination of SDN and plane from data plane offer programmability and management
SDR for exploiting frequency spectrum and link information from a centralised server having a global view of the network
in 5G network. Network environment consists of spectrum status. SDN play a vital role in the management of such
and bandwidth perception in SDR layer while SDN controller heterogeneous network. M2M communicating devices are
can detect channel usage in the network. The cross-layer managed through leveraging SDN control plane in [28]. The
controller has used request frequency spread spectrum and is proposed framework is a two-tier architecture consisting of
the decision maker and review flow traffic. This architecture control plane and data plane and devices are IP enabled. These
also manages user authorization in the cross layer controller devices are populated with routing table as in the SDN-
and grant access to a better band. The process of cross-layer enabled switches. Controller has a complete view of the
communication between SDR and SDN starts with scanning network. If a breakdown observed between devices and
spectrum holes. gateways, the controller does network reconfiguration. The
communication between devices is used three reference points
SoftAir [36], proposed by Akyildiz et al. for the Mx, Gx, Gnx. The device kept its information and its
integration of SDN principals in 5G network by exploiting neighbour information in the form of a file such that any
cloudification and network virtualization of a resilient change in the file is manipulated on controller instruction.
network. The architecture provides mobility aware load
balancing and resources efficient allocation through The management of a heterogeneous smart environment is
virtualization. The network architecture is based on software- quite complicated compared to a homogeneous M2M
defined switches and BSs which be dynamically programmed. communication. Boussard et al. [53] proposed SDN based
The aggregated control is provided by NFV creating multiple control and management framework for IoT devices in a smart
virtual networks with independent protocols and resource environment. In their management framework, called
allocation algorithms. Data plane comprises of SD-RAN and ―Software-Defined LANs (SD-LAN)‖, devices are organised
SD-core network nodes, which are OpenFlow-enabled. Data and grouped in the order of requesting services from the user.
plane monitoring is done through OpenFlow and Common The framework is a four-layer architecture consisting of (i)
Public Radio Interface (CPRI). All management policies are task description (ii). Service description, and (iii). Flow
defined at central control plane, which enables cloud scheduling and low-level communication. This framework
orchestration. Traffic management module in control plane uses Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and Simple Service
selects an optimal path in mobility aware context. QoS Discovery Protocol (SSDP) discovery for the incoming device
applications are carried out through distributed traffic in the SD-LAN network. A virtual topology is created for SD-
classification module in the control plane. Overall, SoftAir LAN devices based on services requirement such as audio,
presents a detailed and complete architecture of 5G cellular video, online game streaming etc.
network management based on SDN and provide end-to-end The legacy routing waste resources and uses link unfairly.
QoS guaranty. In the case of packet loss, the correlated latency also increases
SDN&R [37] present a merger of SDN and SDR for IoT with caused performance degradation. In wired network
network and provide integrated management of diverse IoT packet drop may be caused by congestion on the link but in
network. SDN decouple the control plane from data plane and large-scale IoT devices (mostly wireless ), this re-routing
SDR is used to maintain radio status information in the control cause a Ping-Pong situation and the overall network
plane implemented on a base station (BS). The OpenFlow- performance degraded in case of any packet drop detected
enabled control plane performs radio control on the BS and whether caused by a small interval. Context-aware IoT
cognitive edges (CE). The CE obtains the complete view of architecture
the radio spectrum. The packet processing is done on the IoT applications occupy every domain of life and effect
controller connected to BS via a secure channel. The SDN- socio-economic factors such as health care, security, disaster
enabled cognitive radios resource management. This management, remote access to things etc. In this context, D2D
architecture is the detailed footprint of SDN integration in a communication and coordination can play an important role
cellular network for managing resources that are highly where devices can seamlessly configure and reconfigure
demanded in IoT network. A comparative review of studies network without human intervention. Environment monitoring
literature Cellular IoT Solutions on SDN basis are presented in can be done if the IoT objects are implemented in a context-
Table 3. aware mode of communication. In [15], G. Savarese proposed
a context-aware framework for LTE communication for D2D.

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TABLE I. THE COMPARISON OF EXISTING SDN BASED MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS FOR IOT

Control/da
Architect manageme Protocol scalabil Simulatio
Architecture ta plane benefit Limitation
ure nt used ity n Tools
decoupling
Redefining the
controller
Flow architecture based layered controller
OpenFlow Better
scheduling on DDS design
MINA[21 Centralized like protocol performance
and middleware and - Qualnet is critical to the
] controller and IP and flow
manageme decouple the management and still
protocol scheduling
nt services and actual not addressed
mechanism of
traffic forwarding
Services/ap It uses modular
plication approach and Centralised Scalability,
Publish/s manageme translate user controller mobility and No validation proved
COAP and
ubscriber nt and services message on the High - security. through experiment or
OpenFlow
-SDN[19] resource into SDN flow access Efficient simulation results
manageme using DDS at the point handover
nt gateway
Context-aware
sensor deployment
Profile and using cassowary Device cloudSim/ Energy efficient
CASSOW policy middle box on controller cassowar and security
AMQP Medium Scalability
ARY[20] manageme SDN controller. smart y written profile and
nt Network is divided equipment in JAVA authentic access
into the In-
Memory data grid

TABLE II. THE COMPARISON OF EXISTING WSN- SDN SOLUTIONS

Control/dat
Archite scalabilit Simulation
management Architecture a plane Protocol used benefit Limitation
cture y tools
decoupling
Intercommunic
M2M
ation between
Centralised communicati
SDN_ Topology devices and Undefined functionality
controller with on between
WSN[2 discovery and OpenFlow Low - sensor node and implementation, no
three reference centralised
6] management using gateways proof of evaluation.
points controller
and centralised
and node
controller
WSN cluster with
Optimal path
centralised
OpenFlow/ selection, Implementation of master
WSN- Sensor controller Centralised
distance routing strategy and central controller is
SDN[27 network flow monitored and master Low MATLAB
aware routing adjustment on not clear, No proof of
] management controlled by controller
protocol the network validation,
Master SDN
condition
controller
Infrastructure
management
SD- Programmable
and Micro- Hardware bounded and
WSN[2 FPGA COAP Low - reconfiguration
reconfiguratio controller device dependency
8] of network
n of sensor
network
Dumb data plane
node dynamically
associate with
centralised Reduced total
Centralised
controller where transmission SDN implementation is
ECCK Energy controller ECCKN and Undefine
energy efficient - time and not clear and protocol
N [29] management with dumb OpenFlow d
algorithm centralised interaction is not specified
data plane
ECCKN run to control
calculate routing
on the basis of
residual energy
Open access Decoupling Dedicated Collection Support for SDN controller
Sensha
Infrastructure between overlay tree protocol Low - multiple implementation is not
re [30]
management infrastructure and controller (CTP) sensing clear on overlay network

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application applications
reduced cost
Local controller
Management in each sensor
Packet
platform for node which
Integra Centralised tracer trace Flexible using
using virtual interacts with a Contiki OS on Missing evaluation for
te controller the commodity off
machine in- centralised each local Low behaviour and
WSDN[ and local footprint of the shelf device,
network controller. INNP controller performance of WSN
31] controller messaging reducing cost
Processing is done through
and LQE
(INNP) VM in the node
platform
handling peer
Centralised compatibility,
INNP in data
controller Sensor address
SOF Flow plane and flow- Theoretical idea and not
and OpenFlow Low - classification,
[32] management based packet experimentally proved
distributed (SOF) reduce setup
forwarding
data plane latency, high
throughput
The state-full
Centralised
Localisation approach,
controller with
of distributed reduce
dumb sensor node Centralised Lacking security and
SDN- sensor in a information
having flow table controller, reliability. In-depth
WISE[ centralised OpenFlow medium - exchange.
like OpenFlow dumb data architectural details are
24] controller, Mobility,
flow table which plane missing
energy reconfiguration
is preinstalled
management, and localisation
with flow rules
of
specifications). In this proposed architecture, the authors
This paper briefly describes the LTE network, M2M proposed semantic modelling for the high-level task and low-
communication and an integration of LTE and D2D based on level resource specifications and represent IoT task as
SDN in term of context-aware monitoring of LTE eNodeB hierarchal semantic task and parameters are written in term of
that is responsible for allocating radio resources and ontological concepts. The Task plans are stored in task
scheduling traffic according to the QoS LTE network.The Knowledge Base and resources with capabilities are stored in
collected contextual information of LTE network, in the case resource Knowledge Base. The IoT task is matched with task
of link failure or change in the network, is sent to the Context KB and submits to an analyser, which extracts both KBs, find
Aware Application (CAA) running on the M2M server where
resources with capabilities, and provide and appropriate
SDN controller can react to this change, reconfigure LTE solution, which is then mapped with the service solution
network and allocate LTE resources in a flexible fashion. specification. Information for resource mapping is obtained
Jararweh et al. in [10] proposed a comprehensive from Network information Base or DB. Afterwards, flow
framework model for software defined system for IoT for the scheduling is done on the basis of state information provided
management and control of IoT devices in the heterogeneous by MINA state global information view. The QoS service is
network. The main focus is on the storage and security issues analysed using network calculus model and path is obtained
created in heterogeneous IoT network. The data generated and by using Genetic Algorithm (GA) where each flow has a
collected in IoT environment is immensely high which create chromosome, which is a path between source and destination,
storage issues. Some solutions propose the use of and genes are considered as nodes on that network. The
virtualized/software storage like in [38], where physical implantation is done in the Qualnet simulator by taking smart
storage is abstracted by software storage and build the storage campus network topology. The performance metric used to
control operation in the centralised controller. Jararweh et al. delay, throughput and jitter for file-sharing, tele-audio, and
use this architecture into the IoT environment. The main idea video flow over the network and compared their GA
of collecting data from the sensor board which is aggregated scheduling with two existing SDN scheduling algorithms bin-
on the IoT Bridge and send to SDSec controller for security packing and load balance algorithms and find that their results
checking. They use authentication and authorization for are consistent. In this paper, the author et.al did not found the
ensuring only authorise access. Afterwards, data is sent to IoT flow entry overhead in the beginning and consider that their
controller for rules definition for the collected data with the flow scheduling GA is stable.
help of routing and controlling policies from SDN controller. However, the initial overhead is not negligible and it is
And these rules are stored in the SDStore module of the assumed that the flow is proactively registered in the
framework which is used by the different application. controller. In the case of wireless IoT device, there is a chance
Much of the work has been done for the migration of IoT of change in the topology, which needs to reregister the flow,
from a legacy network to SDN. In this regard, much-cited which create extra overhead and performance degrade.
paper [21] by Qin et al. who proposed IoT architecture for In [55], Xiong et al. presented resource allocation
flow scheduling based on Multi-network Information architecture for SDN based IoT network. The average reward
Architecture (MINA) with layer SDN controller. (The IoT of the network is increased by considering long-term expected
tasks are usually depicted in an abstract manner and they are average reward per unit time and based on this reward optimal
independent of underlying network and device resource

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resource allocation problem using MDP. The reward model is applications, data processing applications etc. Control layer
computed by assuming states and actions in each state. Using consisting modules are ―sensor re-configuration‖ module and
this reward, an optimal resource allocation policy is ―query strategy control‖ module and perform flow-based
formulated using value iteration algorithm. forwarding in the data plane consisting FDs sensor nodes.
Forwarding plane forwards the sensor flow in the order
Ancuta. et al in [56] presented the concept of a defined by the controller. However, flow creation and
management solution for dynamically instantiated services in management was a challenge in SOF and the overhead created
an elastic environment. The information is exchanged between due to control traffic can dim the expected outcome of SOF.
different entities consuming more energy when HTTP To overcome these limitations, complexity is added and
protocol is used for message forwarding. In this context, an simplicity is reduced. For the sack of providing flexibility and
extendable architecture open MTC is proposed and its simplicity in WSNs through SDN, an operating system
implementation is prototyped which uses oneM2M and solution based on SDN was proposed by Galluccio, et al. in
ETSIM2M protocol that run on Gvent API. They show that as [38], named as SDN-WISE; an architecture and operating
soon as the new instance in M2M arrives, the information is system for WSN support duty cycle and data aggregation and
an exchange between M2M management adaptors which provide a state-full solution for SDN. The consisting data
informed the M2M connectivity manager who retains the structures of SDN-WISE are the WISE States Array, the
policies for the M2M devices. This transport policy is Accepted IDs Array, and the WISE Flow Table. The
announced. By this implementation, the scalability can be communication between sensor nodes and other controller is
increased but there is a factor of delay as the number of done through WISE-Visor resemble in the functionality of
devices increased in the network. FlowVisor [65] which is switching virtualization approach in
B. SDN-Based IoT Operating System/controllers SDN. The introduced adoption layer performs translation
The IoT devices, in general, are heterogeneous and use between the sensor node and WISE-Visor and decouples data
multiple technologies for intercommunication. Even though plane and control in the SDN based sensor network. SDN-
IoT uses multiple middlewares to reduce, the gap between WISE is a state-full approach and defines its policies on the
application and IoT devices message passing, interoperability basis of state description, shown in adopted example from [66]
is still an issue to enhance the performance and increase the which depict policy implementation for a packet if its
reusability of IoT network. To deal with this interoperability, threshold or measure is less than a certain threshold (Xthr) and
network Operation System (NOS) play an important role in it is generated by node A as shown in Fig. 6. Details of the
managing interoperability in heterogeneous systems. As studied literature in the context of the controller and operating
sensor nodes and actuator are considered as a building block systems in sensor networks are given below in Table 4.
of an IoT network. These tiny device/motes are constraints of SDN-WISE ensure the minimum number of information
energy resources, storage capacity, and processing power, exchange and holistic support for different protocols and node
content-based routing etc. design. Christos et al. do an enhancement in SDN-WISE in
However, the established OS for these tiny IoT [67]. The authors propose an OS based on Open Network
components in a WSN based IoT network are not capable of Operating System (ONOS) [68] and integration of SDN-WISE
handling interoperability on large scale and conversion of and OpenFlow network in a seamless manner. An OpenFlow-
flow. For this reason, many OS, Such as Contiki [57], RIOT enabled device can interact with a WSN network through
OS [58], Tiny OS [59], Lite OS [60] etc. were presented for ONOS.
WSN based IoT network. However, these operating systems C. SDN security framework for IoT
are specific to the certain application, thus lacking flexibility In the most recent IoT arena, billions of Internet-connected
and dynamism i.e. independent of platform in a system. A physical objects produces the bulk of data within few
comparative analysis of these all OS is presented in Table. 4. milliseconds whose storage, processing, automation, and
Still, there is no concrete OS for managing the integration management is an intensive task. These devices are potentially
of IoT and SDN. In this context, a little effort is put in under threat due to unbounded connectivity and
developing OS for SDN based IoTs which in return create communication over wired and wireless transmission medium
complexity in translating flow rules/policies for IoT devices. due to lack of standard security protocol/architecture for IoTs.
SDN is also in its infancy and it uses OpenFlow is used for SDN is considered a powerful technology of having
bridging gap between SDN control plane and data plane. Few centralised control over the information flow in the network
NOS are also available in market such as NOX, ONIX [62], and provide a preemptive security policy. The IoT system
Maestro [63], OpenDaylight [14] etc. These controllers are becomes more vulnerable to security risks when they are
well operated for wired SDN but these OS are not suitable for monitored from a centralised controller as SDN based IoT
SDN-driven IoT network. This controller or OS lack support network.
for the characteristics of IoT devices such as fundamental Little considerations of security aspect are witnessed in
energy and processing constraints, data aggregation, duty SDN based IoT network. In [39], Sahoo et al. proposed a
cycle etc. The initiating concept of reprogramming and re- secure architecture for IoT network based on SDN. There are
tasking in WSN was proposed in Sensor OpenFlow (SOF) five basic security properties which need to be under
[47]. SOF is three layer architecture; application layer, a consideration while defining a security model. These security
control layer and data plane layer. The application layer characteristics are Confidentiality, integrity, availability,
consists of all applications necessary for managing query
authentication and non-repudiation [39]. Sahoo et al. proposed

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their secure architecture on the basis of authentication of IoT reactively. In [43] Architecture is presented where each node
device on the controller. In this architecture, the considered is connected to a domain controller through an embedded
IoT is an ad hoc network in which wireless object establish a virtual switch. This controller is on the edge of the network
connection with the controller and controller block all the port and acts as a domain controller and provide authentication of
when the connection is established and controller starts the network devices. On the authorization profile, flow entries
authentication. If the user is authentic, the controller starts are pushed in the access switch. Oliver et al. [44] proposed a
pushing flow to that user. Few controllers in the network serve SDN based IoT architecture for infrastructure and
as a security guard and exchange information with each other infrastructure-less network where a virtual switch is embedded
about the user authentication. In the case of guard controller in each node bounded to a controller in a domain. Devices in
failure, some other border controller is selected as security different domains interact with the border switch. Some of the
controller. border switches are selected as controller and these controller
acts as a security controller. The security controllers provide
Even though this work presents a basic layout for secure dynamic network configuration and security policy
SDN based IoT network, however, the validity and correct deployment. The architecture provides Authentication of the
operation are not provided. network devices on the time of device registering with the
A
controller.
IoT/M2M communication can leverage emergency
C D SINK response in case of network failure in a disaster situation and
can aid the first responder in taking appropriate decisions. In
B Figure 6a. Exemplar
Topology
[45], a security architecture for the first responder in the
Source = B, Data<= Source = B, Data >
IoE/IoT environment is proposed using Software Defined
Source = A, Data >
Xthr, Action = forward
Xthr, Action = forward
Xthr, Action = Perimeter (SDP) protocol. Where SDP collect the IP addresses
to D forward to D
to C of all M2M communication capable devices and store into a
logical network. When any new M2M device comes in close
proximity of SDP domain, they first configure themselves in a
State= State= secure SDP by using authentication credentials. SDP
0 1 efficiency of authenticating secure access in the emergency
response is visible, it also can data privacy and trust in the
M2M communication network.
Source = B, Data<=
Xthr, Action =
Source = A , Action forward to D, state =
Source = A, SDIoT [10] present the security of SDN based IoT
Action = forward
= Dropped 0 to D network by implementing SDSec module which utilised NFV
Fig. 6. Action derived from FSM in SDN-Wise to create a virtual topology for the connected device and
leverage the benefit of SDP for authentication by block all the
In [40], authors proposed a dynamic firewall named as switch port when received a request from a new flow. SDSec
Distributed Smart Firewall (DISFIRE) for secure architecture store information in the security database and it identifies an
in SDN based grid network. The architecture consists of object by tracking authentication DB. SDN controller set flag
hierarchal cluster network with multiple SDN controllers. P if everything is good otherwise flag N for negative. If the
These cluster head SDN controller implement a security flag is set P then flow is allowed to enter and access is
policy. For this purpose, they used cisco defined policy agent granted. Another security framework is proposed in [46]. In
opFlex [41] in the controller instead of OpenFlow. The device this architecture, author uses IoT agent and IoT controller that
information is exchanged between devices and any are responsible for connecting SDN controller in the SDN-
unauthorised potentially malicious device flow rule policy is enabled heterogeneous network. IoT agent is registered agent
deleted. with IoT controller. SDN controller performs authentication
and routing based on collected information from the IoT
A security proposal for smart cities is presented in [42]. agents. The whole IoT network is divided into segments with
Chakrabarty et al. proposed a secure architecture based on its own SDN controller. Every IoT device must be connected
trusted SDN controller, Black Network, Unified Registry and to an OpenFlow enabled IoT device, which coordinates with
Key Management System in an IoT network. The security segment controller. The inter-segment communication is
architecture ensures authentication of the heterogeneous through gateway controller. Embedded system implication in
devices. SDN controllers act as a Trusted Third Party (TTP) intensive health monitoring is a rich field; highly requiring
and provide security properties i.e. confidentiality, privacy, security and reliability in information interchange. Cyber-
integrity, authentication, and routing between IoT devices. attacks and malicious encroachment are very common in the
The unified registry is responsible for Identity management, Internet-connected environment and can modify the
availability, accounting, authentication, authorization. The functioning of embedded systems. Security system in the
shared key is used for secure communication. embedded system does not entail high processing security
Ad-hoc network in term IoT network do not provide techniques. Ukil et al. exploited the detail security threats in
access control and traffic monitoring in ad hoc network is not embedded system in [47]; proposed Secure Execution
possible therefore security is a threat in ad hoc network where environment (SEE) mediating security model from outside
infrastructure is missing and connection are established security threats. Dedicated security processor

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compartmentalised from non-secure mode is SEE architecture furthermore, they require excessive buffering to be
with dedicated RAM for retaining integrity and confidentiality implemented in objects. Also, the traffic pattern in IoT is
from out the SEE code. Intrusion detection system (IDS) different from the traditional network traffic even different
implementation is not easy in IoT as it requires complex from SDN/OpenFlow data flow; require excessive intention
mathematical computation and profile based modelling. In from the researchers.
[48], Skowyra et al. exploited the idea of IDS based learning
in the mobile embedded system for restraining modification In SDN, loT of control traffic consume bandwidth and
from any anomaly either from inside the network or from out hence degrade the spectral efficiency in the IoT Devices. Also,
of the network. The OpenFlow controller contains all logic the battery power is highly vulnerable to this massive control
and defines rules based on state-full information. Table. 5 traffic. In IoT devices, the traditional security characteristic is
presents the studies literature about the security-related hard to implement, the authentication and authorization
solution in IoT-based on SDN. require a storing of authentication profiles in the minute
storage. Well-known traditional network security cannot be
IV. DISCUSSION AND OPEN ISSUES applied in IoT. SDN centralised control plane may suffer from
denial of services attack and man in middle attack. Due to the
The whole concept of IoT-SDN is not mature, and huge amount of data produced in IoT network, data privacy is
standardisation efforts are still under way, multiple competing a critical issue in the case of M2M communication in IoT
alliances are trying to dominate for a global standard. We have network.
discussed broad literature on the integration of SDN and IoT.
In this study, different aspects of SDN integration in IoT The controller is still not defined for the IoT. The
technology in the context of M2M communication, LTE/IoT controller took a lot of space and implemented on the server
communication, Sensor IoT heterogeneous network are side; in that case, the instruction set produced by the SDN
discussed. It also highlights the proposed solutions for controller should be formatted according to the IoT devices.
architecture, management framework; security aspect in the The single centralised controller is prone to single point
SDN based IoT. A detailed overview of the observed studies failure; therefore, a need for distributed controller is a research
is given in Table 5; which demonstrate the diversity of SDN question in IoT communication network.
incorporation in different IoT domains. Another important
thing to notice that most of these studies are not V. QUALITATIVE PREDICTIONS FOR 2020
experimentally validated; however only a representative The IoT will help in establishing smart ecosystems such as
proposal frameworks are grabbing the attention during last smart home, smart building, smart health care unit, disaster
five years. This is because of the anticipated benefits of SDN management, smart industrialisation, nifty transportation and
programmability in the management of mushroom growing smart grid station etc. and eventually bring a social and
IoT devices. This effort could become a reference point for the industrial revolution. According to a statistic data obtained
researchers and developers to investigate the trending IoT from [2], around 14.4 billion connected devices were there in
application in a more controlled way; proving fast innovation 2014 and will reach up to 50 billion connected devices in
and change due to technology shifts. 2020. The increasing trend in the IoT connected device with
However, the existing solution is not fully integrated into respect to the world population is shown in Fig. 7
SDN and a comprehensive architecture and framework are not IoT adopting is like a wildfire spreading across dry grass
established so far. Few effort are really admirable such as and millions of IoT-enabled smart devices are in operation
SDIoT, BlackSDN etc., like sensors, actuators, RFIDs, vehicles, PDAs, smartphone,
where a complete framework for IoT devices is presented cellular devices, wearable‘s, smart bulbs, smart turbines, smart
giving SDStorage, SDSystem and SDSec for management, arms and much more. This widespread adoption of smart
security and architectural detail of IoT interplay in SDN. A object and interconnectivity has changed the market and
major factor of lacking a comprehensive architecture for SDN research interest. According to a report by Gartner, Inc.,
based IoT is the absence of a concrete framework of IoT around 6.4 billion devices are in play till 2016 which is 30%
architecture. more than in 2015 and there is approximately 5.5 million new
devices are connecting to the Internet per day. This count is
SDN main characteristics lie in the wired and immense increased and will reach to around 20.8 billion in
infrastructure-based network, while in IoT, devices are diverse 2020 (according to Gartner report) and will reach up to 50
in nature and different communication technologies are billion connected devices in 2020 creating revenue of $14.4
blended to form a heterogeneous network. This merger may trillion. Due to this high-expected statics, companies are
be mobile in case of ad hoc network or vehicular network bullishly spending a huge amount on IoT integration; around
where dynamic allocation of resources with constraints $656 billion were spending in 2014, which estimate a rise up
devices need object addressing, which is still not addressed in to $1.7 trillion in 2020. It is estimated that there will be a 90%
SDN, based IoTs rise in the installation of intelligence and smart connectivity in
cars until 2020, which was only 2% in 2012. This swift switch
Another issue in the IoT network is content addressing and is forcing manufacturers and industries to look into broader
context awareness in services provisioning with QoS support, sense and hence research trends are changes as shown in Fig.
which is still not addressed in any work. Existing transport 8.According to International data corporation, around $8
protocols fail in the IoT scenarios since their connection setup billion will be generated which was only $960 million dollars
and congestion control mechanisms may be useless; in 2014; 90% compound growth rate. According to Gartner,

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SDN application and infrastructure is top 10 strategic during

2015. The annual data growth rate also crosses limits in zeta-
bytes in 2016 and predicted to cross up to 2.3 ZB by 2020.
According to IDC, overall enterprise network revenue will
grow 3.5% to reach $41.1 billion When the growth rate comes
in term of SDN then according to Gartner report there is 87%
increase in production in the data centre using SDN and
revenue generated was $960Million in 2014and will raise to
$8Billion by 2018 i.e. 734% a total rise. The increase in both
domains clearly predicts a merger of two technologies and
increase in the SDN based IoT production.

Fig. 7. Worldwide IoT connected devices

TABLE III. THE COMPARISON OF EXISTING CELLULAR IOT SDN SOLUTIONS

Tar
Cloudific Control/d
get Resource Interf
Architec ation/virt ata plane Traffic Scalab Simulati
net managem ace Purpose Benefit Limitation
ture ualizatio decouplin engineering ility on tools
wor ent API
n g
k
Increasing
the
spectrum
allocation Unpredicted user
efficiency behaviour,
Wi- Spectrum
Smart and uplink and Independent inflexible traffic
Fi manageme No Centralize MATLA
anten virtual downlink of physical engineering,
SDR ,WI nt at virtualizat d Low B,
na network/s spectral spectrum Advanced
MA software ion controller Simulink
API lices to efficiency allocation spectrum
X level
support management
multiple
wireless
protocol
instances
Centralise
To d No concrete
Radio
overcome controller solution,
Resource resource
the tightly and local virtualization is
manageme Contr Load balancing management
bounded agent at not clear,
nt, oller Interference , mobility
SoftRA 5G/ co- Big base eNBs , LTE- centralised control
mobility API/F management/ Low support,
N[33] LTE ordination station Abstractio SIM plane and
support, emto SD Radio Traffic
in n through interaction
traffic API access network offloading,
resource slicing between core
offloading Reduced
managem forming network and RAN
delay
ent big base is not defined
station
For the
managem
ent of
spectrum Spectrum
allocation resource
Hybrid Spectrum No Centralize Power
and management Cross-layer
SDN- 5G manageme - virtualizat d low MatLab saving and
network and network controller, security
SDR[35] nt ion controller optimisation
managem resource
ent (e.g., management
bandwidt
h) in a 5G
network
Cell Logically SoftCell Dynamic
Fine grain Modificat MPLS and
ular Open Minimum centralise impleme traffic
SoftCell policies ion in the slandered Fine grain service
net Flow virtualizat d high nted on offloading,
[34] manageme core routing as in policies
wor API ion controller, Floodlig efficient
nt. network OpenFlow
k local ht routing,

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Vol. 7, No. 11, 2016

agent SD- controlle minimising

RAN r and the state in
(BS) micro- the core
benchma network
rking
using
bench
Distributed
traffic
network
classificati Flexible
function SD-BS, Collaborative
on, fine Open platform for
cloudifica Fine grain SD- processing,
SoftAir[ grain Flow fully & Security issue not
5G tion and virtualizat switch, scheduling and high -
36] virtualizati & partially addressed
network ion BS- mobility
on, CPRI centralised
virtualizat clustering management
network architecture
ion
manageme
nt (routing)
No proof of
Mobility Centralise Seamless
concept and
Cell manageme Basic d control mobility
evaluation of the
ular nt and support plane, MPLS traffic management
cellSDN virtualizat proposed scheme,
net policy NOS for local labelling or Low - and fine
[16] ion vague traffic
wor control virtualizat control VLAN tags grain control
engineering
k manageme ion agent ate due Local
handling using
nt BS agent
MPLS/VLAN tags

TABLE IV. WSN BASED OS IN IOTS

RAM
Operating Programming Kernel Service Kernel
Action required Model
System Language Implementation management management
(Kb)
Event Preemptive
Contiki C 2 Dynamic Hybrid -
based multithreading
Task
RIOT OS C/C++ 1.5 Multithreading Dynamic Static -
based
Concurrency
TinyOS Event NesC 1 Partial Static Dynamic
model
Event hierarchical
Lite OS C 4 Multithreading Dynamic Dynamic
based file system
Event
SDN-WISE Java 10 State-full State-full Dynamic Modular
based
Event
ONOS Java 8 - - - modular
based

TABLE V. SDN-BASED IOT SECURITY SOLUTIONS

Approach Security parameter Network description Limitations
SDN controller block all switch Not prove implementation or
secured SDN
Authentication Ad hoc network port on receiving new flow and simulation, only a theoretical
framework [39]
start authentication framework
hierarchal cluster network with
Evaluation of framework lacking.
Authentication & multiple SDN controllers
DISFIRE[40] Grid network The protocol used is opflex which
authorization implement a dynamic firewall to
is not practically tested
ensure authorization
Location Security, secure the meta-data and the
Scalability in black network will
Confidentiality, Integrity, Generic IoT/M2M payload by encryption in the link
Black SDN[42] create hazard in providing
Authentication And communication layer and use SDN controller as
complete security
Privacy. TTP
SDP collect the IP addresses of all
M2M communication capable
Ad hoc network/M2M Scalability will encounter
SDP[45] Authentication devices and store into a logical
communication performance in case of IoE
network. And authenticate on the
basis of information stored
It utilised SDSecurity mechanism Hard to manage the large network
leveraging NFV and SDP for in case of single SDSec logical
SDIoT[10] Authentication Generic IoT network
ensuring secure access in the element. An experimental
network by authentication. evaluation is lacking
Authentication, security Domain controller and edge
Lacking proof for concept, not
[43][44][46] policy at security Generic IoT controller for security and
tested not evaluated
controller intercommunication between

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different domain/segments

Theoretical concept of encountered

Embedded
SEE [47] Confidentiality, Integrity security threats in an embedded Processing slows down
devices/System
system
Mobile embedded devices A Large number of control
Mobile embedded dynamically form connection with message interchange creates
L-IDS [48] Learning network IDS devices (MEB) for the the infrastructure where the congestion on the controller.
institutional site. possible attacker can attack MEB Experimental validation in not
and done yet.

TABLE VI. DESCRIPTIVE SUMMARY OF IMPORTANT SDN-IOT SOLUTION FRAMEWORKS

Approach purpose Implementation domain Year Operating system/controller
SDN-6LoWPAN [49] NFV for bandwidth utilization IPv6 local WPAN 2015 Centralized SDN controller
Network configuration and resource M2M communication
SDN-M2M [50] 2014 Centralised SDN controller
management devices
MINA[21] Flow scheduling and management Middleware 2014 Centralized controller
Publish/subscribe- Services/application management and
Generic IoT 2015 Centralized controller
SDN[19] resource management
CASSOWARY[33] Profile and policy management WSN 2015 Centralized
Centralized controller with three
SDN_WSN[46] WSN 2014 Centralized controller
reference points
Hierarchal controller (cluster and
WSN-SDN[41] Sensor network flow management WSN 2014
master controllers)
Infrastructure management and
SD-WSN[42] WSN 2014 FPGA microcontroller
reconfiguration of sensor network
Centralised controller with dumb data
ECCKN [29] Energy management in sensor network WSN 2016
plane
Senshare [44] Open access Infrastructure management Sensor networks 2012 Dedicated overlay controller
Management platform for using virtual
Integrated WSDN-[45] WSN 2015 Local and centralised controller
machine in-network Processing (INNP)
Centralised controller and distributed
SOF [47] Flow management WSN 2012
data plane
Localisation of distributed sensor in a
SDN-WISE[38] centralised controller, energy WSN 2015 Centralized controller
management
SDR Spectrum management at software level Wi-Fi ,WIMAX 2012 Centralised control plane
CellSDN[16] Cellular network 2012
Resource management, mobility
SoftRAN[33] 5G/LTE 2013 Big base station
support, traffic offloading
SoftCell[49] Fine grain policies management. Cellular network 2013 Logical centralized controller
Hybrid SDN-SDR[35] Spectrum management 5G 2014 Centralized controller
network function cloudification and
SoftAir[36] 5G 2015 SD-Centralized controller
network virtualization
secured SDN
Authentication Ad-hoc networks 2015 SDN controller block
framework [39]
Ad hoc network/M2M
SDP[45] Authentication 2015 Central controller and local agents
communication
hierarchal cluster network with multiple
DISFIRE[40] Authentication & authorization Smart Grid network 2016
SDN controllers
Location Security,
Generic IoT/M2M
Black SDN[42] Confidentiality, Integrity, Authentication Centralized controller
communication 2016
And Privacy.
SDIoT[10] Authentication & authorization Generic IoT 2015 SDSec module on SDN controller
SEE [47] Confidentiality, Integrity Embedded system 2011 -
L-IDS [48] Learning network IDS Embedded system 2013 OpenFlow controller

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