Flow‐rule integration for quality of service enhancement in software‐defined vehicular network

Abstract

Summary A software‐defined vehicular network (SDVN) is a concern, where roadside units are connected, and a massive amount of data is accumulated at the software‐defined network (SDN) switches, leading to the flow table overflow problem. Existing works are concentrated more on flow‐rule aggregation in a fast manner at the switches, which impacts quality of service (QoS) at SDVN. QoS‐wise flexible OpenFlow‐rule integration method is proposed to address the challenges of OpenFlow‐table overflow problem in SDN controller switches. By having minimal impact on the QoS of the vehicular network, it reduces the number of OpenFlow rules using a key‐based mechanism. However, we note that choosing a QoS path from numerous paths is important by considering the OpenFlow‐table usage at the switches. Based on this, a flexible‐fit heuristic approach is proposed, which considers the insertions of OpenFlow rule besides with congestion flow rule‐capacity switch on a path while reducing the cumulative number of OpenFlow rules in SDVN. Experimental results of this scheme show that it decreases average end‐to‐end time delay and packet dropping by 37% and 14%, respectively. Compared with the existing scheme, the average network throughput increases by 22%, and also it has a comparable improvement in the reduction of OpenFlow rules at the switches of SDVN.