Using spanners to improve network performance

In this paper we introduce a new, minimum-cuts based spanner algorithm, when the goal is twofold: (a) to decrease the number of active links in the network and (b) to maintain the ability of the SDN (Software-Defined Networking) controller to perform load balancing. The proposed spanner concept also can be used in order to reduce the running time of the SDN centralized routing algorithm. In addition, we show how to maintain the spanner under dynamic link insertion, deletion and changed weight. The validation of our solution is made through the analysis and simulation that show the superiority of our approach in many cases.