Virtual Link Mapping for delay critical services in SDN-enabled 5G networks

This paper presents VLM+, a Virtual Link (VL) Embedding algorithm supporting Quality of Service (QoS). VLM+ has been developed evolving its Mixed Integer Programming (MIP) based Virtual Link Mapping algorithm precursor (VLM), whose analytical model has been enhanced including the ability to fulfill VL end-to-end QoS requirements and to prioritise VL requests according to their QoS class or revenue profile. Additionally, VLM+ supports three different physical resource sharing policies, this providing Physical Infrastructure Providers (PIPs) with high flexibility in the allocation of resources to embed QoS-constrained VLs. VLM+ has been designed and evaluated targeting next generation networks, conceived around SDN and NFV paradigms and expected to support, among others, delay critical services. VLM+ performance has been evaluated via simulation and compared to VLM, Shortest Path First (SPF) and Constrained SPF algorithms. Promising quantitative results demonstrate VLM+ ability to embed VLs fulfilling end-to-end QoS requirements, still achieving an efficient resource utilisation and at a moderate cost in terms of increased complexity and convergence time.