Autonomic Network Management and Cross-Layer Optimization in Software Defined Radio Environments

The demand for Autonomic Network Management (ANM) and optimization is as intense as ever, even though significant research has been devoted towards this direction. This paper addresses such need in Software Defined (SDR) based Cognitive Radio Networks (CRNs). We propose a new framework for ANM and network reconfiguration combining Software Defined Networks (SDN) with SDR via Network Function Virtualization (NFV) enabled Virtual Utility Functions (VUFs). This is the first approach combining ANM with SDR and SDN via NFV, demonstrating how these state-of-the-art technologies can be effectively combined to achieve reconfiguration flexibility, improved performance and efficient use of available resources. In order to show the feasibility of the proposed framework, we implemented its main functionalities in a cross-layer resource allocation mechanism for CRNs over real SDR testbeds provided by the Orchestration and Reconfiguration Control Architecture (ORCA) EU project. We demonstrate the efficacy of our framework, and based on the obtained results, we identify aspects that can be further investigated for improving the applicability and increasing performance of our broader framework.