This paper introduces a Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture for 5G dense multi-infrastructure provider deployed wireless backhaul networks. The architecture contains a two-tier controller in a hierarchical setup aiming to offload some of the control functionalities from the central controller to a collection of logically distributed dynamically configured local controllers in order to balance the tradeoff between scalability and system performance.
A multi-tenancy dynamic resource sharing algorithm, together with a backhaul link scheduling strategy based on the proposed SDN architecture are introduced as a case study. The results demonstrate the proposed architecture can deliver efficient resource utilization with marginal QoS compromises compared to an all centralized framework which requires on-the-fly control information exchange, high energy savings (up to 40%), and Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee for public safety service providers.