REDO: A Reinforcement Learning-based Dynamic Routing Algorithm Selection Method for SDN

Abstract

The current increase in the Internet traffic along with the global crisis have accelerated the roll-out of the next generation 5G network and key enabling technologies. In this context, addressing the end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning in order to guarantee a sustainable service delivery to the end-users became of paramount importance. Some of the enabling technologies that could play a key role in this regard are Software Defined Network (SDN) and Machine Learning (ML). This paper proposes REDO, a Reinforcement lEarning-based Dynamic rOuting algorithm selection method that decides on the conventional routing algorithm to be applied on the traffic flows within a SDN environment. REDO will dynamically select the most appropriate routing algorithm from a set of centralized routing algorithms (MHA, WSP, SWP, MIRA) that maximizes the reward function from the network. The proposed REDO solution is implemented and evaluated using an experimental setup based on Mininet, Floodlight controller and Open vSwitch switches. The results show that REDO outperforms other state-of-the-art solutions.