Fault-Tolerant Embedding Algorithm for Node Failure in Airborne Tactical Network Virtualization

Abstract

Airborne tactical networks (ATNs) are driving the promising development of Internet of Battle things by enabling efficient information sharing, which is impeded by the network ossification problem that is deep-rooted in the tightly coupled network architecture. As a solution, network virtualization (NV) can break the tight coupling between applications and network infrastructure, providing a more flexible and scalable architecture for ATNs. With complex interference and malicious attacks, the application of NV is challenged by network failures when instantiating multiple virtual networks on a shared substrate network, which is known as survivable virtual network embedding (SVNE). However, existing SVNE algorithms, mostly designed for wired networks, are not necessarily optimal for the virtualization of ATNs due to the complex wireless interference. To this end, a fault-tolerant SVNE algorithm, termed SVNE-FT, is proposed to recover virtual networks from single node failure (end or switching node failure) under the wireless interference. To end node failure, SVNE-FT firstly adopts a novel node ranking approach to select reliable substrate nodes for virtual nodes and then remaps the failed virtual nodes, affected by node failure, by releasing part of the substrate paths to improve the resource utilization. In addition, to switching node failure, it adopts the improved pre-configured cycle (p-Cycle) technology to augment the reliable link mapping with differentiated p-Cycles that protect switching node from node failure and reduce the resource consumption of backups. Numerical simulation results reveal that SVNE-FT outperforms typical and latest heuristic SVNE algorithms under the complex interference of ATNs. For instance, average acceptance ratio of virtual networks improves at least 12%.