Management model of virtualized network resources for trading between owner and user

Abstract

With network virtualization, users of network resources, i.e., service providers (SPs), can be separated from the owners of the network resources, i.e., infrastructure providers (InPs). In this case, SPs are not required to own the network infrastructure, and they can focus on providing network services without constructing and managing the network infrastructure. This is expected to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to start various types of network services. However, to promote the separation between owners and users of network resources, it is important to suitably define the management model of network resources that is necessary to trade resources between InPs and SPs. In this paper, we summarize the requirements for a management model of network resources considering the aspects of both InPs and SPs and propose a management model consisting of allocation blocks (ABs) that satisfies these requirements. We also propose a method of optimally designing the ABs for a given time-series of resource demand by SPs. Through numerical evaluation using the actual log data of a VoD service, we clarify that the proposed method can reduce the total fee paid by SPs compared with a straightforward approach, i.e., uniform ABs.