Performance modeling for virtual network based service provisioning

One of the goals of network service providers (SP) is to provision efficiently value-added networking services to their end users. The services may have different duration, connectivity, and quality of service (QoS) requirements. An SP meets such requirements by exploiting various routing and management mechanisms for edge and core networks. We focus on network services that require the establishment of virtual networks (VNs). This paper considers a VN creation architecture based on multi-protocol label switching (MPLS). MPLS is one approach for implementing VNs that enables programmability for network infrastructure and hence the creation of value-added services. An analytic performance model is developed to assess the scalability of the architecture as the underlying physical network infrastructure evolves. The model we present describes only coarse features of the architecture, yet offers insights regarding its performance and scalability. In particular we assess the impact of a flat versus hierarchical MPLS mechanism on the response time of service creation.