Traffic Engineering in Software-defined Networks using Reinforcement Learning: a review

With the exponential increase in connected devices and its accompanying complexities in network management, dynamic Traffic Engineering (TE) solutions in Software-Defined Networking (SDN) using Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques has emerged in recent times. The SDN architecture empowers network operators to monitor network traffic with agility, flexibility, robustness and centralized control. The separation of the control and the forwarding plane in SDN has enabled the integration of RL agents in the networking architecture to enforce changes in traffic patterns during network congestions. This paper surveys major RL techniques adopted for efficient TE in SDN. We reviewed the use of RL agents in modelling TE policies for SDNs, with agents’ actions on the environment guided by future rewards and a new state. We further looked at the SARL and MARL algorithms the RL agents deploy in forming policies for the environment. The paper finally looked at agents design architecture in SDN and possible research gaps.