A multiagent based context-aware and self-adaptive model for virtual network provisioning

Abstract

Recent research in network virtualization has focused on the Internet ossification problem [1] whereby multiple independent virtual networks (VN) [1] that exhibit a high degree of autonomy share physical resources and can provide services with varying degrees of quality. Thus, the Network field has taken evolutionary steps on re-thinking the design and architectural principles of VN [2][3]. However, to the best of our knowledge, there has been little investigation into the autonomic behaviour of such architectures [4][5]. This paper describes an attempt to use Multiagent System (MAS) principles to design an autonomic and self-adaptive model for virtual network provisioning (VNP) that fills a gap in the current Internet architecture. In addition, we provide an analysis of the requirements of self-adaptive provisioning for designing reliable autonomic model that is able to self-organize its own resources, with no external control, in order to cope with environmental changes. Such behaviour will be required as the next generation Internet evolves. Through our evaluation, we demonstrate that the model achieves its main purpose of efficiently self-organizing the VN, since it is able to anticipate critical scenarios and trigger corresponding adaptive plans.