Metaheuristic Optimization of Controller Placement in Software Defined Networks
Mohd Elmuntasir Ahmed, Yaser Al Mtawa · 2025
Introducing Software Defined Networking (SDN) controllers throughout the network enhances its scalability and management capabilities. Nonetheless, determining the optimal placement of these controllers within the network presents a challenging problem, because the controller placement decision must prioritize objectives such as minimizing latency, ensuring high reliability, minimizing hardware cost, and maximizing throughput of the network. Additionally, these controllers offer several advantages over traditional switches or routers, such as programmability, managing traffic flows, and providing alternative paths. The placement of the controllers significantly influence the robustness and resilience of the network. In this study, we provide a cutting-edge metaheuristic algorithm to solve the controller placement problem (CPP). This algorithm is applied to the integer linear programming (ILP) solution to improve the performance and reliability of the network by selecting optimal nodes of the network for controller placement, and the SDN-enabled network outperforms the state-of-the-art legacy network. The study formulates the maximum throughput, propagation delays, and controller cost mathematically in the collected network, which are then solved using the proposed algorithm.