QoS Aware Routing Approaches in Software Defined Smart Grids

Software-defined n etworking (SDN) is a promising technology for future smart grid (SG) systems, since SGs heavily rely on communication networks. With SDN, communication network part of SGs becomes programmable by abstracting control logic from routing devices and assigning this task to a logically centralized controller. Thus, in software-defined smart grids, traffic flows can be or chestrated and routed easily. A software-defined smart grid serves different types of traffic flows originating from different types of SG applications such as smart metering, distribution automation, and demand response, etc. These heterogeneous traffic h ave d ifferent Q oS requirements in terms of data rate, latency, reliability, and security, etc., Therefore, providing QoS aware routing mechanisms becomes inevitable for software defined s mart grids. In this study, we classify QoS aware routing approaches according to their QoS goals. We review existing works, and discuss algorithmic and mathematical approaches. Finally, we identify open research issues and present future research directions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that focuses QoS aware routing strategies for SDN-based SGs.