The control and management of satellite networks in an effective and optimal manner is a challenging task, owing to the features of satellite networks such as dynamic topology, non-uniform traffic distribution, limited onboard resources, etc. In order to utilize the network resources efficiently, special attention has to be paid to network architecture and traffic engineering techniques. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a new networking paradigm in which the centralized control logic is decoupled from the data plane. It's interesting to see how can the SDN concept exert influence on satellite networks through network programmability. This paper investigates the challenges in satellite network control and management first, then presents a general SDN-based satellite networking architecture and discusses the benefits resulting from the integration of the SDN concept. An analytical estimation of controlling overhead is given subsequently since this affects network efficiency and performance. The segment control technique is used to scale down the overhead and facilitate the adoption of SDN in satellite networks.
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