Virtual network approach to scalable IP service deployment and efficient resource management

As the Internet evolves into a global all-service communication infrastructure, a key consideration is providing quality of service guarantees over IP with efficient resource utilization in a scalable, flexible, and automatic way. In this article we present a virtual network (VN) based architecture for scalable IP service deployment and efficient network resource management. Particularly considering a DiffServ/MPLS III transport network supporting multiple VNs, we propose a dynamic approach for efficient bandwidth sharing among VNs. The bandwidth sharing is service-level-agreement-based; the spare capacity in underloaded VNs is adaptively and efficiently utilized, and SLA compliance for all the VNs involved is always guaranteed.