# Logically-Centralized SDN-Based NDN Strategies for Wireless Mesh Smart-City Networks +
Footnote †: This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license ([[https://creativecommons.org/licenses/py/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/py/4.0/)]([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/py/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/py/4.0/))). [PERSON]  
1 Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia, 54636 Thessaloniki, Greece 1*1 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 67100 Xanthii, Greece 1*1 Correspondence: [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (S.K. ); [PERSON]DDRESS] (L.M.) 1*1 This paper is an extension of our paper \"Experimenting with an SDN-Based NDN Development over Wireless Mesh Networks\" published in the IEEE INFOCOM 2022--IEEE Conference on Computer Communications Workshops (INFOCOM WKSHPS), Virtual, 2-5 May 2022. [PERSON]  
1 Department of Applied Informatics, University of Macedonia, 54636 Thessaloniki, Greece 10 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, 67100 Xanthii, Greece 10 Department of Electrical  
Wireless Mesh Networking (WMN) seems to attract more attention in several case studies of smart cities (e.g., Stratford [2], CityLab [4], SmartShatader [5]) as is capable to support a wide range of wireless smart community areas in a multi-hop manner, with ease-deployable and low-cost infrastructure, while at the same time guarantees robust and efficient connectivity in dynamic environments (e.g., mobile users support). In summary, some of the advantages provided by WMN in smart cities are (i) flexibility supporting efficient interconnection of multiple distributed end-user devices; (ii) unstructured self-sustaining and self-configuring topologies, and (iii) integration of different networking technologies such as wired, optic-fiber, cellular and sensor networks [3]. Moreover, the multi-hop communication over the WMN can work as a complementary solution to other wireless networking technologies, e.g., to provide connectivity in areas where 5G coverage is not sufficient or achieve low delay in case the 5G RAN is far. However, the WMN backbone network may incorporate regional communication characteristics, such as areas with (i) static nodes, requiring efficient management of network resources [6]; (ii) mobile nodes, causing frequent instabilities in the network (e.g., topology rearrangements), and (iii) high signal interference [4]. On the other hand, Named-Data Networking (NDN) [7], an Information-Centric Networking (ICN) [8] architecture, has been proposed as a promising approach to match the IoT application requirements [9] in smart-city environments [10]. In particular, NDN architecture: (i) facilitates content retrieval from the network, as NDN packets contain data names instead of IP addresses and (ii) contributes to reduced communication overhead thanks to the in-network caching [11]. A typical example of NDN implementation on top of smart-city environments is the work [6] in which the authors examine the efficiency and effectiveness of NDN principles in CityLab testbed, using containerized NDN service placement in wireless nodes. However, deploying NDN in such dense WMN requires employing additional mechanisms to enable efficient multi-hop NDN communication. On the one hand, an important aspect is the selection of nodes, in which, the NDN protocol will be deployed [12], to avoid unnecessary resource consumption. For example, Figure 1 depicts that in a multi-hop communication between two NDN nodes (producer-consumer), not all of the available intermediate nodes are required. On the other hand, a second major challenge is to adjust the NDN paths appropriately. Considering the latter, smart-city networks provide a diverse set of communication conditions, spanning from stable to unstable conditions.