Traditional communication networks consist of large sets of vendor-specific manually configurable devices which are hardwired with specific control logic or algorithms. The resulting networks comprise distributed control plane architectures that are complex in nature, difficult to integrate and operate, and are least efficient in terms of resource usage. However, the rapid increase in data traffic requires an integrated use of diverse access technologies and autonomic network operations with increased efficiency. Therefore, the concepts of Software Defined Networking (SDN) are proposed that decouple the network control plane from the data-forwarding plane. The SDN control plane can integrate a diverse set of devices, and tune them at run-time through vendor-agnostic programmable Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). This thesis proposes software defined cognitive networking to enable intelligent use of network resources. Different radio access technologies, including cognitive radios, are integrated through a common control platform to increase the overall network performance. The architectural framework of software defined cognitive networking is presented alongside the experimental performance evaluation. Since SDN enables applications to change the network behavior and centralizes the network control plane to oversee the whole network, it is highly important to investigate security of SDNs. Therefore, this thesis finds potential security vulnerabilities in SDN, studies proposed security platforms and architectures for those vulnerabilities, and presents future directions for unresolved security vulnerabilities. Furthermore, this thesis also investigates the potential security challenges and their solutions for the enabling technologies of 5G, such as SDN, cloud technologies, and virtual network functions, and provides key insights into increasing the security of 5G networks.

中文翻译：

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改进软件定义的认知和安全网络

传统的通信网络由大量特定于供应商的手动配置设备组成，这些设备与特定的控制逻辑或算法硬连线。由此产生的网络包括分布式控制平面架构，这些架构本质上很复杂，难以集成和操作，并且在资源使用方面效率最低。然而，数据流量的快速增长需要综合使用各种访问技术和自主网络操作，以提高效率。因此，提出了软件定义网络（SDN）的概念，将网络控制平面与数据转发平面解耦。SDN 控制平面可以集成各种设备，并在运行时通过与供应商无关的可编程应用程序编程接口 (API) 对其进行调整。本文提出了软件定义的认知网络来实现网络资源的智能使用。包括认知无线电在内的不同无线电接入技术通过一个公共控制平台进行集成，以提高整体网络性能。软件定义的认知网络的架构框架与实验性能评估一起呈现。由于 SDN 使应用程序能够改变网络行为并集中网络控制平面来监督整个网络，因此研究 SDN 的安全性非常重要。因此，本文寻找SDN中潜在的安全漏洞，研究针对这些漏洞提出的安全平台和架构，并提出未解决的安全漏洞的未来发展方向。此外，