Service overlay network capacity adaptation for profit maximization

The considered Service Overlay Networks (SON) lease bandwidth with Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees from a multitude of Internet Autonomous Systems, through service level agreements (SLA) with Internet Service Providers (ISP). This bandwidth is used to establish SON links and deliver end-to-end QoS for real time service connections. The leased bandwidth amount influences both the admitted traffic and network cost, affecting the network profit. This gives the network operator the opportunity to optimize the profit by adapting the network resources to changing traffic and SLA costs conditions. We propose a novel approach that maximizes the network profit based on traffic measurements and SLA cost changes. The approach uses an economic model that integrates the network routing policy with the adaptation of the SON link capacities. While performing the adaptation of leased bandwidth, the connection blocking constraints are also maintained. The proposed adaptive optimization approach is based on a reward maximizing routing policy derived from the Markov Decision Process theory although it can be applied to other routing policies. Analytical models as well as simulation of a measurement based implementation of the proposed models are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach.