Efficient Virtual Network Optimization Across Multiple Domains Without Revealing Private Information

• Published in: IEEE eTransactions on network and service management Vol. 13; no. 3; pp. 477 - 488
• Main Authors: Mano, Toru, Inoue, Takeru, Ikarashi, Dai, Hamada, Koki, Mizutani, Kimihiro, Akashi, Osamu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-09-2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Algorithm design and analysis; Buildings; Economic models; III-V semiconductor materials; Indium phosphide; Network virtualization; optimization; Optimization methods; secure multi-party computation; security; virtual network embedding; Virtual networks; Virtualization
• ISSN: 1932-4537; 1932-4537
• DOI: 10.1109/TNSM.2016.2582179

Building optimal virtual networks across multiple domains is an essential technology for offering flexible network services. However, existing research is founded on an unrealistic assumption: providers will share their private information including resource costs. Providers, as well known, never actually do that so as to remain competitive. Secure multi-party computation, a computational technique based on cryptography, can be used to secure optimization, but it is too time consuming. This paper presents a novel method that can optimize virtual networks built over multiple domains efficiently without revealing any private information. Our method employs secure multi-party computation only for masking sensitive values; it can optimize virtual networks under limited information without applying any time-consuming techniques. It is solidly based on the theory of optimality and is assured of finding reasonably optimal solutions. Experiments show that our method is fast and optimal in practice, even though it conceals private information; it finds near optimal solutions in just a few minutes for large virtual networks with tens of nodes. This is the first work that can be implemented in practice for building optimal virtual networks across multiple domains.