SDN-based Self-Configuration for Time-Sensitive IoT Networks

TL;DR

This paper presents an SDN-based self-configuration framework for Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) in IoT environments, enabling automated, dynamic network setup that maintains real-time guarantees without prior flow knowledge.

Contribution

It introduces a novel SDN-driven self-configuration method for TSN that removes end-host dependencies and optimizes flow paths based on traffic monitoring and an optimization model.

Findings

Effective for various network sizes and host counts

Maintains real-time guarantees with minimal latency increase

Automates TSN configuration without prior flow information

Abstract

The convergence of IT and OT technologies results in the need for efficient network management solutions for automotive and industrial automation environments. However, configuring real-time Ethernet networks while maintaining the desired QoS is challenging due to the dynamic nature of OT networks and the high configuration parameters. This paper introduces an SDN-based self-configuration framework for the fully automated configuration of TSN networks. Unlike standard TSN configuration, we remove end-host-related dependencies and put flows initially on default paths to extract traffic characteristics by monitoring network traffic at edge switches. Communicated to a central SDN controller, these characteristics allow to move the flows to optimal paths while maintaining hard real-time guarantees, for which we also formulate an optimization problem. Our simulation results indicate that the proposed self-configuration approach works properly for different network sizes and numbers of end-hosts. Even though it slightly increases the average latency of critical frames, it still provides a certain level of real-time guarantee without any prior knowledge of flows.