Satellite networks have traditionally been considered for specific purposes. Recently, new satellite technologies have been pushed to the market enabling highperformance satellite access networks. On the other hand, network architectures are taking advantages from emerging technologies such as Software-Defined Networking (SDN), network virtualization and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). Therefore, benefiting communications services over satellite networks from these new technologies at first, and their seamless integration with terrestrial networks at second, are of great interest and importance. In this paper, and through comprehensive use cases, the advantages of introducing network programmability and virtualization using SDN and/or NFV in satellite networks are investigated. The requirements to be fulfilled in each use case are also discussed.

International audienceMany distributed real-time applications have dynamic requirements regarding communication delay and bandwidth. The Data Distribution Service (DDS) middleware is a key enabling technology used to support such applications. Indeed, the publish/subscribe distribution model of DDS with the ability to assign dynamic QoS (Quality of Service) parameters to DDS distribution services is able to take into account changes in the exchanged data flows and in the required QoS. This variability is taken into account at the middleware level to adjust some of DDS QoS mechanisms but is rarely propagated to the network layer to provide dynamic network communication services that fit the varying DDS distribution service needs. Usually, an over provisioned network is used, leading to network resource wastage. This paper addresses this issue and proposes a communication architecture that combines DDS with a new emerging class of communication networks named Software Defined Networks (SDN) to support efficiently dynamic distributed applications. SDN bring flexibility to the network and enable the provision of on-demand dynamic network communication services

Abstract-Transport protocols have been developed at first for terrestrial networks, but they are also used on communication satellite networks which have specific characteristics such as low bandwidth, QoS architecture and large latency. TCP and SCTP have been intensively studied in several circumstances, recommendations have been provided and results obtained. We are going to use the research done in order to study SCTP and TCP behavior on a satellite network implementing QoS architecture. Our intentions are to explain and predict the behavior of the transport protocols on such networks. The settings of these transport protocols will be studied in order to prove how they can be both improved on a satellite network with a QoS architecture.