Int. J. Bio-Inspired Computation, Vol. 12, No. 3, 2018 173 Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. An intelligent traffic engineering method for video surveillance systems over software defined networks using ant colony optimisation Reza Mohammadi, Reza Javidan* and Manijeh Keshtgari Department of Computer Engineering and Information Technology, Shiraz University of Technology, Shiraz, Iran Email: r.mohammadi@sutech.ac.ir Email: javidan@sutech.ac.ir Email: keshtgari@sutech.ac.ir *Corresponding author Abstract: Nowadays, software defined network (SDN) is an innovative technology for provisioning quality of service (QoS) requirements. SDN network management facilitated using software in which network administrator can perform desired traffic engineering techniques on different applications. Video streaming in video surveillance systems is a critical application which needs QoS requirements such as low packet loss and short delay. These requirements can be satisfied by using traffic engineering techniques over SDNs. In this paper, an intelligent traffic engineering technique for a video surveillance system over SDN is proposed. It is based on constrained shortest path (CSP) problem in which the packet loss and delay of video streaming data should be significantly reduced. Due to NP-completeness of the CSP problems, in this paper, ant colony optimisation algorithm is used to solve it. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first traffic engineering technique used ant colony for video streaming over SDN. Comparisons between the proposed method and prevalent methods such as OSPF routing protocol and LARAC optimisation algorithm demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of packet loss, delay and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). It was shown that using the proposed method will also ameliorate the traffic engineering for video surveillance systems. Keywords: software defined network; SDN; ant colony; traffic engineering; video streaming. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Mohammadi, R., Javidan, R. and Keshtagi, M. (2018) ‘An intelligent traffic engineering method for video surveillance systems over software defined networks using ant colony optimisation’, Int. J. Bio-Inspired Computation, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp.173–185. Biographical notes: Reza Mohammadi received his MSc in Computer Networks from the Shiraz University of Technology in 2013. Currently, he is a PhD student in Computer Networks at the Shiraz University of Technology. He has many publications in international conferences and journals regarding underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs). Currently, he is focused on software defined networks (SDN) as a new trend in computer networks. His major fields of interest are software defined networks (SDNs), heuristic algorithms, underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs), ad hoc networks and underground wireless sensor networks (UWSNs). Reza Javidan received his MSc in Computer Engineering (Machine Intelligence and Robotics) from the Shiraz University in 1996. He received his PhD in Computer Engineering (Artificial Intelligence) from the Shiraz University in 2007. He has many publications in international conferences and journals regarding image processing, underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) and software defined networks (SDNs). He has many PhD and MSc students working together as a team. His major fields of interest are network security, underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs), software defined networks (SDNs), artificial intelligence, image processing and SONAR systems. He is currently a member of faculty and Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering and Information Technology in the Shiraz University of Technology. Manijeh Keshtgari received her BSc in Computer Engineering from the Shiraz University in 1986, Master in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Colorado State University, USA in 1992 and PhD in Computer Engineering from the Sharif University of Technology in 2004. Her research interests include wireless networks, fibre optic networks, software defined