Optimizing the Embedding of Cloud Network Virtual Infrastructures

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), which is offered by cloud computing, has focused on providing computing and storage resources, considering network mostly as a required communication accessory and not as a resource itself. In other words, the ability to define network resources (e.g. routing/switching elements, bandwidth, delay) is still very limited. However, the need to have more robust solutions is becoming clearer. In this paper we argue that, in a near future, cloud infrastructure services will evolve and allow the definition of complete infrastructures, which we refer to as Virtual Infrastructures (VI), which comprise not only computing resources but also network resources. This paper specifically addresses the VI embedding problem through joint virtualization of computing and network resources. In order to address this problem, an Integer Linear Programming (ILP) formulation with two embedding strategies is proposed. Finally, the performance of the different strategies is carefully evaluated.