Evaluating SDN Applicability in the Edge

Multi-Access Edge computing (MEC) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) are novel paradigms, often utilised together, and aim to simplify the management of resources and offer cloud capabilities at the edge. SDN was originally designed for complex and large networks though recently found applications in smaller networks with fewer links. Little effort is given to the evaluation of SDN applicability at the Edge, especially in scenarios where Internet of Things (IoT) deployments are involved. This work presents an evaluation of SDN technology applicability at the edge in terms of data plane and control plane resource consumption. Our findings justify the wide acceptance of SDN and show that the control plane consumes relatively few resources compared to MEC resource pool. However, given the current trends of SDN, there are several possible improvements with respect to the cost of new equipment and the availability of tools.