Green Footprint by Cognitive Management of Opportunistic Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes using cognitive management of operator-governed opportunistic networks to enhance resource efficiency, reduce energy consumption, and promote greener wireless networking solutions through dynamic, self-managed network extensions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining opportunistic networks with cognitive management systems for energy-efficient, flexible wireless network management.

Findings

Simulation results show potential for lower costs and greener footprints.

The approach enables fast, reliable establishment of opportunistic networks.

Conditions identified where the solution improves resource utilization and sustainability.

Abstract

The existing characteristics of the wireless networks nowadays, urgently impose the exploitation of flexible networking solutions that will offer increased efficiency in resource utilization and application Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning and at the same time will reduce the energy consumption and achieve green targets. In this respect, Operator-governed Opportunistic Networks (ONs), which are dynamically created, temporary, coordinated extensions of the infrastructure, are the basic constituents in the proposed approach. In addition, Cognitive Management Systems (CMSs), which comprise self-management and learning capabilities, can be exploited for ensuring fast and reliable establishment of ONs, achieving efficiently the desired goals. This paper presents the concept of ONs and their representative scenarios, as well as an evaluation of indicative test cases as a proof of concept of the aforementioned approach. Indicative simulation results are presented, which yield the conditions in which the adoption of such a solution can lead to lower costs and management decisions with a "greener" footprint.