Digraph-based joint routing and resource allocation in software-defined backhaul networks

By decoupling the control plane from the data plane and providing programmability for network applications, software-defined network (SDN) is positioned to offer more efficient management, higher flexibility and better performance. Routing and resource allocation are two closely related applications in wireless networks. With close cooperation, better performance and lower complexity can be achieved in an SDN architecture. However, work that jointly studies routing and resource allocation is rarely seen. In this paper, the joint routing and resource allocation problem is investigated in OFDMA-based software-defined backhaul networks (SDBN). To exploit the SDN programmability, an SDBN system model is proposed, where the control panel can use high complexity algorithms in configuration phase in order to simplify algorithms in operation phases. Then the joint routing and resource allocation problem is formulated as a system throughput optimization problem. By constructing the interference digraph of the network and analysing the vertex degree characteristics, a digraph-based greedy algorithm (DBGA) is proposed. Simulation results have shown that, the proposed DBGA works well to increase the system throughput.