Survey Studies of Software-Defined Networking: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) represents a novel technological paradigm expected to dominate the next-generation networking. Since the emergence of SDN, there has been a significant increase in publications addressing a wide range of issues, leading to a proliferation of surveys and reviews. Consequently, due to the growing number of survey studies in the SDN domain, it has become imperative to establish a comprehensive taxonomy for these papers. This paper presents a systematic taxonomy for classifying, categorizing, and analyzing state-of-the-art survey research within the SDN field. Our systematic taxonomy process involves selecting reviews and surveys related to keywords such as ‘SDN,’ ‘survey,’ ‘challenge,’ ‘taxonomy,’ ‘review,’ and ‘state-of-the-art.’ We sourced these papers from reputable digital databases, including Web-of-Science (WoS), ScienceDirect, Scopus, and the Institute-of-Electrical-and-Electronics-Engineers’ Xplore, all of which comprehensively cover recent literature. In total, we analyzed 442 survey and review studies published between 2012 and 2021, covering various journals and conferences with a focus on both general topics and specific subtopics of SDN. This paper represents the first epistemological study conducted on the literature of SDN. Our study aims to serve as a valuable resource for researchers, journal editors, and funding agencies, facilitating the identification of research gaps and making a significant contribution to future studies.