Network Load Minimization-Based Virtual Network Embedding Algorithm for Software-Defined Networking

In a network virtualization-enabled software-defined networking (SDN), the problem of virtual network embedding (VNE) is a major concern. Although a number of VNE algorithms have been proposed, they fail to consider the efficient utilization of substrate resources or the network load extensively, thus resulting in less efficient utilization of substrate resources or higher blocking ratio of the virtual networks. In this paper, we study the problem of mapping a number of virtual networks in SDN and formulate the VNE problem as a network load minimization problem. Since the formulated optimization problem is NP-hard and it cannot be solved conveniently, we propose a two-stage VNE algorithm consisting of node mapping stage and link mapping stage. Numerical results demonstrate that the effectiveness of our proposed algorithm.