A feedback control approach for energy efficient virtual network embedding

Network virtualization is an enabler for intelligent energy-aware network deployment. The existing research usually searches the subset of resources in the whole substrate network passively for the virtual networks (VNs), where resource consolidation achieves the minimization of energy consumption by switching off or hibernating as many network nodes and interfaces as possible. However, the stable active resources for accommodating the VNs help enhance the number of the hibernated nodes and links, which can reduce the energy consumption. A novel method for energy efficient virtual network embedding (EEVNE) is proposed in this paper, which controls the mappable area of the substrate network actively and can find the minimal consolidation of the network resources. In our proposed method, a controller, a check device and an actuator are designed for finding the stable consolidated subset of the substrate resources. Besides, two feedback control-based EEVNE algorithms are devised to minimize the energy consumption of the substrate network for embedding VNs. Simulation results show that our algorithms significantly save greater energy than the existing algorithms. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.