A survey of Blockchain technologies applied to software‐defined networking: Research challenges and solutions

Abstract

Abstract Software‐Defined Networking (SDN) brought a groundbreaking idea to facilitate network system management by decoupling and abstracting the Control plane and Data plane of traditional networks. The centralised control offers network administrators many benefits such as a global view of the network, programmability, dynamic updating of forwarding rules, and software‐based traffic analysis. The SDN architecture has been applied a lot in practice, and especially in Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. With the superiority of SDN, IoT devices can be managed and configured much more easily when combined. However, SDN also raises many challenges in terms of scalability, reliability, and security. Blockchain is another promising solution for secure information storage and transmission technology that operates without a centralised authority. Applying Blockchain technology into SDN can address some of the current issues of SDN by providing decentralised methods to authenticate exchanged network information. This study provides a comprehensive survey on Blockchain technologies applied to SDN in both security and non‐security fields. First, related studies and an overview of SDN and the background of Blockchain technology are presented. Then, the authors review how Blockchain technologies are applied in SDN from two perspectives: non‐security and security‐aware approaches. Finally, challenges and broader perspectives are discussed.

Keywords

• authorisation
• centralised control
• computer network management
• information storage
• Internet
• security of data