This paper addresses the problem of admission control for elastic network slices that may dynamically adjust provisioned bandwidth levels over time. When admitting new slice requests, sufficient spare capacity must be reserved to allow existing elastic slices to dynamically increase their bandwidth allocation when needed. We demonstrate a lightweight deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) model to intelligently make ad-mission control decisions for elastic slice requests and inelastic slice requests. This model achieves higher revenue and higher acceptance rates compared to traditional heuristic methods. Due to the lightness of this model, it can be deployed without GPUs. We can also use a relatively small amount of data to train the model and to achieve stable performance. Also, we introduce a Recurrent Neural Network to encode the variable-size environment and train the encoder with the RL model together.
more »
« less
A Reinforcement Learning-Based Routing Strategy for Elastic Network Slices
This paper addresses a routing selection strategy for elastic network slices that dynamically adjust required resources over time. When admitting elastic initial slice requests, sufficient spare resources on the same path should be reserved to allow existing elastic slices to increase their bandwidth dynamically. We demonstrate a deep Reinforcement Learning (RL) model to intelligently make routing choice decisions for elastic slice requests and inelastic slice requests. This model achieves higher revenue and higher acceptance rates compared to traditional heuristic methods. Due to the lightness of this model, it can be deployed in an embedded system. We can also use a relatively small amount of data to train the model and achieve stable performance. Also, we introduce a Recurrent Neural Network to auto-encode the variable-size environment and train the encoder together with the RL model.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 2008856
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10343827
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- ICC 2022 - IEEE International Conference on Communications
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1-6
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
more » « less
The high reliability required by many future-generation network services can be enforced by proper resource assignments by means of logical partitions, i.e., network slices, applied in optical metro-aggregation networks. Different strategies can be applied to deploy the virtual network functions (VNFs) composing the slices over physical nodes, while providing different levels of resource isolation (among slices) and protection against failures, based on several available techniques. Considering that, in optical metro-aggregation networks, protection can be ensured at different layers, and the slice protection with traffic grooming calls for evolved multilayer protection approaches. In this paper, we investigate the problem of reliable slicing with protection at the lightpath layer for different levels of slice isolation and different VNF deployment strategies. We model the problem through an integer linear program (ILP), and we devise a heuristic for joint optimization of VNF placement and ligthpath selection. The heuristic maps nodes and links over the physical network in a coordinated manner and provides an effective placement of radio access network functions and the routing and wavelength assignment for the optical layer. The effectiveness of the proposed heuristic is validated by comparison with the optimal solution provided by the ILP. Our illustrative numerical results compare the impact of different levels of isolation, showing that higher levels of network and VNF isolation are characterized by higher costs in terms of optical and computation resources.
-
In order to meet the performance/privacy require- ments of future data-intensive mobile applications, e.g., self- driving cars, mobile data analytics, and AR/VR, service providers are expected to draw on shared storage/computation/connectivity resources at the network “edge”. To be cost-effective, a key functional requirement for such infrastructure is enabling the shar- ing of heterogeneous resources amongst tenants/service providers supporting spatially varying and dynamic user demands. This paper proposes a resource allocation criterion, namely, Share Constrained Slicing (SCS), for slices allocated predefined shares of the network’s resources, which extends traditional α−fairness criterion, by striking a balance among inter- and intra-slice fairness vs. overall efficiency. We show that SCS has several desirable properties including slice-level protection, envyfreeness, and load- driven elasticity. In practice, mobile users’ dynamics could make the cost of implementing SCS high, so we discuss the feasibility of using a simpler (dynamically) weighted max-min as a surrogate resource allocation scheme. For a setting with stochastic loads and elastic user requirements, we establish a sufficient condition for the stability of the associated coupled network system. Finally, and perhaps surprisingly, we show via extensive simulations that while SCS (and/or the surrogate weighted max-min allocation) provides inter-slice protection, they can achieve improved job delay and/or perceived throughput, as compared to other weighted max- min based allocation schemes whose intra-slice weight allocation is not share-constrained, e.g., traditional max-min or discriminatory processor sharing.more » « less
-
A key dimension of reproducibility in testbeds is stable performance that scales in regular and predictable ways in accordance with declarative specifications for virtual resources. We contend that reproducibility is crucial for elastic performance control in live experiments, in which testbed tenants (slices) provide services for real user traffic that varies over time. This paper gives an overview of ExoPlex, a framework for deploying network service providers (NSPs) as a basis for live inter-domain networking experiments on the ExoGENI testbed. As a motivating example, we show how to use ExoPlex to implement a virtual software-defined exchange (vSDX) as a tenant NSP. The vSDX implements security-managed interconnection of customer IP networks that peer with it via direct L2 links stitched dynamically into its slice. An elastic controller outside of the vSDX slice provisions network links and computing capacity for a scalable monitoring fabric within the tenant vSDX slice. The vSDX checks compliance of traffic flows with customer-specified interconnection policies, and blocks traffic from senders that trigger configured rules for intrusion detection in Bro security monitors. We present initial results showing the effect of resource provisioning on Bro performance within the vSDX.more » « less
-
Next-generation optical metro-access networks are expected to support end-to-end virtual network slices for critical 5G services. However, disasters affecting physical infrastructures upon which network slices are mapped can cause significant disruption in these services. Operators can deploy recovery units or trucks to restore services based on slice requirements. In this study, we investigate the problem of slice-aware service restoration in metro-access networks with specialized recovery trucks to restore services after a disaster failure. We model the problem based on classical vehicle-routing problem to find optimal routes for recovery trucks to failure sites to provide temporary backup service until the network components are repaired. Our proposed slice-aware service-restoration approach is formulated as a mixed integer linear program with the objective to minimize penalty of service disruption across different network slices.We compare our slice-aware approach with a slice-unaware approach and show that our proposed approach can achieve significant reduction in service-disruption penaltymore » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- The DOI is not currently available.
