A large-scale demonstration of SDN-based handover management in IEEE 802.11 networks

The density of Wi-Fi at professional environments, such as offices, is resulting in increased strain on the management of Wi-Fi networks, of which handovers are an essential part of. The centralized approach of SDN allows taking more intelligent decisions, as opposed to per device optimizations. There is thus an increased interest in SDN-based Wi-Fi management, especially for handovers. Several proposals for SDN-based handover algorithms are being investigated and there is a need for actually validating them. In this demo, we will showcase a Wi-Fi SDN framework, on top of which a number of decision-making handover algorithms can be used. This framework is used in a real-life, large scale Wi-Fi testbed. The framework allows for different decision-making handover algorithms to be created and validated on large scale.