A new control- and management architecture for SDN-enabled quantum key distribution networks

Abstract: This paper aims to address the challenge of designing secure and high performance Quantum Key Distribution Networks (QKDN), which are essential for encrypted communication in the era of quantum computing. Focusing on the control and management (CM) layer essential for monitoring and routing, the study emphasizes centrally managed software defined networks (SDN). We begin by analyzing QKDN routing characteristics needed for evaluating two existed architectures and the proposed, new CM layer implementation. Following the theoretical analysis, we conduct a discrete-event based simulation in which the proposed architecture is compared to an existent serving as performance-baseline. The results provide recommendations based on use cases for which different architectures show superiority and offer valuable insights into the development and evaluation of CM architectures for QKDNs.