Optimal server selection for competitive service providers in network virtualization context

Abstract

Network Virtualization enables service providers to instantiate virtual networks while sharing the same physical infrastructure. Virtual networks are allocated to clients for deploying their services. In this context, clients are served without knowing which server is replying and which routing strategy is adopted. In this paper, we focus on the server selection problem for competitive service providers in Network Virtualization context. These latter do not own the physical infrastructure and aim to minimize the cost of leased resources while meeting their clients’ SLA (Service Level Agreement) targets. We propose a mixed integer linear program whose objective is to minimize latency under clients’ demand and server’s bandwidth constraints based on low and medium traffic intensities. We show that concentrating the traffic on the closest server yields an optimal solution. In addition, through simulation and analytical results, we show that Traffic Concentration reduces the response time, jitter, and node and link utilization compared to YouTube, random server selection, and equal load distribution of traffic among servers. However, the latter technique yields the best performance in terms of packet loss.