Software Defined Wireline-Wireless Cross-Networks: Framework, Challenges, and Prospects

Optical networks can support a large amount of IP traffic in the next generation of networks with energy efficiency awareness. However, the ever increasing demand of IP traffic also renders tremendous energy consumption in the next generation of networks. The traditional separate design for wireline and wireless networks cannot meet the demand of energy efficiency in the systems well. Fortunately, SDN provides effective leverage to transform such a separate design into a wireline-wireless cross-network design. In this article, through employing software defined cross-networks, the wired routing and wireless transmission can be controlled in an integrated and centralized way. Intelligent algorithms can thus be used for effective implementation of joint design with low delay, powerful control function of networks, and energy-efficient trade-off across the networks. However, it is challenging to find a suitable trade-off among energy efficiency, energy consumption, and traffic delays between wired and wireless networks. This motivates us to propose a novel and feasible integrated energy- efficient framework. We also provide several promising research directions for joint energy efficiency designs in the next generation of networks.