Optimal Mapping of Virtual Networks

Network virtualization is a promising technique for building the Internet of the future since it enables the low cost introduction of new features into network elements. An open issue in virtualization is how to search for an efficient mapping of virtual network elements onto those of the existing physical network, also called the substrate network. Mapping is an NP-hard problem and existing solutions ignore various real network characteristics in order to solve problem in a reasonable time frame. This paper introduces two new algorithms for the solution of the mapping problem, both based on 0--1 integer programming, for the solution of the mapping problem which consider a whole new set of network parameters not taken into account by previous proposals. Simulation experiments confirm the efficiency of the proposed algorithms.