A routing strategy for power communication networks based on SDN architecture

Abstract

With the rapid development of smart grid, the power communication network carries a large number of key traffics to ensure the stable operation of the power grid. The reliability and energy consumption of the power communication network has become a hot issue in this field. Link load balancing is a key factor to ensure the reliability of the power communication networks. However, when link load balancing is implemented, more fiber links will be activated, which increase energy consumption. Therefore, taking account of both link load balancing and energy saving, this paper proposes a multi-objective routing strategy in power communication networks based on the in-band Software-defined Network (SDN) architecture. In this strategy, a service request is responded by our routing algorithm, and if there are more than one service request simultaneously, the service requests are responded by the service importance. In our routing algorithm, the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is used for multi-objective optimization, and an individual is selected from the Pareto-optimal front as the final solution by the path delay. Compared with the routing strategy using the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol, our routing strategy obtains a better trade-off between link load balancing and energy saving.