SDN@Play: Software-Defined Multicasting in Enterprise WLANs

Concurrent distribution of multimedia streams to a high number of end users through a wireless network is extremely popular nowadays. Nevertheless, multicast traffic orchestration over traditional Wi-Fi networks is still an important problem for network operators. Low multicast data rates and poor coexistence with other services are just some of the challenges that must be faced when deploying multicast solutions over Wi-Fi. In this article we present SDN@Play, a centralized approach to manage multicast flows based on Software-Defined Networking (SDN) principles. We also report on a proof-of-concept implementation of SDN@Play that can be used in several scenarios ranging from vehicular networks to in-flight entertainment systems, and from enterprise group to machine type communications applications. Finally, we make the prototype fully available to researchers and practitioners under a permissive APACHE license.