Energy-aware mapping for dependable virtual networks

Network virtualization has been pointed out as a promising technique to tackle Internet´s current ossification and to mitigate sustainability issues related to energy consumption. A critical issue is the virtual network embedding (VNE), due to the NP-hard nature of the problem. Thus, several heuristics have been proposed aiming to achieve efficient allocations. In this paper, we extend the VNE problem to consider dependability and energy consumption issues, utilizing an approach based on GRASP metaheuristic. Experimental results demonstrate energy savings obtained with the proposed approach over representative VNE techniques. The results also present a trade-off between energy consumption, availability and cost.