Soft sensors in wireless networking as enablers for SDN based management of content delivery

In this paper we present an approach for establishing soft/virtual sensors across wireless network components (access points, connected devices and routers) and a cloud based software defined networking (SDN) controller. These soft sensors provide the contextual insight necessary for efficient management of available storage and networking resources, all the while ensuring necessary QoS levels in content delivery services (i.e. video delivery). The approach presented converts wireless network infrastructure into an edge computing platform which provides real time decision making based on results received from established soft sensors. This provides the level of reactivity necessary for fast changing conditions in IoT era wireless networks. The cloud based SDN controller oversees the content delivery system and performs strategic/proactive decision making and guides edge computing processes and decisions in line with defined policies. In this paper we show the impact of SDN based resource management, supported by soft sensors and edge computing across wireless networking infrastructure, on resource utilization efficiency and QoS in content delivery.