On the Benefit of Virtualization: Strategies for Flexible Server Allocation

Network virtualization is an intriguing paradigm which loosens the ties between services and physical infrastructure. The gained flexibility promises faster innovations, enabling a more diverse Internet and ensuring coexistence of heterogeneous Virtual Network (VNet) architectures on top of a shared substrate. Moreover, the dynamic and demand driven allocation of resources may yield a "Greener Internet" without sacrificing (or, in the presence of the corresponding migration technology: with improved!) Quality-of-Service (QoS)/Quality-of-Experience (QoE). This paper attends to a fundamental challenge in the field of network virtualization: the flexible allocation and migration of servers.