Big data helps SDN to manage traffic

Traffic management plays a crucial role in achieving high-performance networking with optimal resource utilization. However, efficient and effective traffic management could be very challenging in large-scale dynamic networking environments. Software-defined networking (SDN) together with Big Data analytics offers a promising approach to addressing this challenging problem. We first provide an overview of the general process of network traffic management, in both conventional Internet Protocol (IP)-based networks and the emerging SDN networks. Then, we present an architectural framework of Big Data-based traffic management in SDN. We discuss some possible Big Data analytics applications for data analysis and decision-making in SDN for traffic management. We also identify some open issues and challenges that must be addressed for applying Big Data analytics techniques in SDN traffic management, which offer possible topics for future research and technology development.