About this Research Topic
Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Blockchain are leading technologies used worldwide to establish safe distributed network communication and build secure network infrastructures. SDN has drastically changed the network control and management of complex enterprise networks as an innovative network paradigm more flexible and easier to manage. The main function of SDN is to separate the control and management planes from the data plane by introducing specific protocols (such as OpenFlow) to operate between these layers. SDN-based solutions may help achieve needs like scalability and smooth, efficient, and cost-effective deployment in smart cities.
At the same time, Blockchain enables sharing a transaction ledger that is read, verified, and stored in a chain of blocks. Systems based on blockchain technology are distributed, containing several agents or participants who should be independent of one another and may form themselves into a network collectivity via peer-to-peer connections (P2P).
In the specific field of Internet of Things (IoT), SDN, and Blockchain technologies are used in conjunction to create a better solution for any smart technology (such as intelligent buildings, smart homes, smart cities, and smart grids), these technologies may also ensure that data is sent and securely communicated via networks. Using the strengths of SDN and blockchain technologies, a new network architecture has emerged to solve the present limits of the smart city network architecture.
In this Research Topic, the focus is on smart cities, which are usually mainly based on IoT devices. These smart cities, and smart buildings, are a dependable domain for mechanically controlling and managing temperature, security, lighting, and other building functions. SDN-based smart buildings include goals, method scope, target architecture (centralized network controller), communication protocols, and resource configuration (homogeneous and heterogeneous). Security, energy efficiency, network management, reliability, QoS, and latency reduction are some of the main goals of such a network.
These deployments of Blockchain technologies on SDN-based networks for smart cities pose several challenges and issues that need to be addressed by the research community for smooth and successful operations of SDN-enabled smart cities, that is, to obtain fully-fledged deployments in the IoT field. This special issue aims to collect the state-of-the-art solutions related to the deployment of Blockchain in SDN enabled smart cities.
The topics include but are not limited to (in the context of Blockchain based SDN for smart cities):
• Advances of Blockchain and/or SDN in the IoT field
• Performance evaluation techniques of Blockchain-based SDN for smart cities
• Novel architectures for SDN, HSDN, and NFV
• Efficient network management techniques in constrained IoT environments
• Softwarized IoT applications for smart cities and other specific IoT scenarios (e.g., Internet of Medical Things (IoT))
• Security models and protocols for softwarized IoT environments
• Integration of SDN and/or blockchain with optical network devices
• Efficient network operating system (SDN controller) design for IoT
• Programming and abstraction languages for IoT
• Traffic engineering and traffic optimizations techniques
• Platforms for fog/edge/mist/cloud computing
• Verification and debugging tools
• Multimedia communication in IoT environments
• Heterogeneous data communication paradigms for IoT-based networks
• Heterogeneous data synchronization systems for 5G and 6G
• Location-based data services for smart applications
• Federated learning networks
• Scalable and energy-efficient distributed networks
• Opportunistic networks (OppNets)
At the same time, Blockchain enables sharing a transaction ledger that is read, verified, and stored in a chain of blocks. Systems based on blockchain technology are distributed, containing several agents or participants who should be independent of one another and may form themselves into a network collectivity via peer-to-peer connections (P2P).
In the specific field of Internet of Things (IoT), SDN, and Blockchain technologies are used in conjunction to create a better solution for any smart technology (such as intelligent buildings, smart homes, smart cities, and smart grids), these technologies may also ensure that data is sent and securely communicated via networks. Using the strengths of SDN and blockchain technologies, a new network architecture has emerged to solve the present limits of the smart city network architecture.
In this Research Topic, the focus is on smart cities, which are usually mainly based on IoT devices. These smart cities, and smart buildings, are a dependable domain for mechanically controlling and managing temperature, security, lighting, and other building functions. SDN-based smart buildings include goals, method scope, target architecture (centralized network controller), communication protocols, and resource configuration (homogeneous and heterogeneous). Security, energy efficiency, network management, reliability, QoS, and latency reduction are some of the main goals of such a network.
These deployments of Blockchain technologies on SDN-based networks for smart cities pose several challenges and issues that need to be addressed by the research community for smooth and successful operations of SDN-enabled smart cities, that is, to obtain fully-fledged deployments in the IoT field. This special issue aims to collect the state-of-the-art solutions related to the deployment of Blockchain in SDN enabled smart cities.
The topics include but are not limited to (in the context of Blockchain based SDN for smart cities):
• Advances of Blockchain and/or SDN in the IoT field
• Performance evaluation techniques of Blockchain-based SDN for smart cities
• Novel architectures for SDN, HSDN, and NFV
• Efficient network management techniques in constrained IoT environments
• Softwarized IoT applications for smart cities and other specific IoT scenarios (e.g., Internet of Medical Things (IoT))
• Security models and protocols for softwarized IoT environments
• Integration of SDN and/or blockchain with optical network devices
• Efficient network operating system (SDN controller) design for IoT
• Programming and abstraction languages for IoT
• Traffic engineering and traffic optimizations techniques
• Platforms for fog/edge/mist/cloud computing
• Verification and debugging tools
• Multimedia communication in IoT environments
• Heterogeneous data communication paradigms for IoT-based networks
• Heterogeneous data synchronization systems for 5G and 6G
• Location-based data services for smart applications
• Federated learning networks
• Scalable and energy-efficient distributed networks
• Opportunistic networks (OppNets)
Keywords: Blockchain, Internet of Things, Network Security, Smart Cities, Software-Defined Networking
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
