In cloud computing we have pools of computing, memory, and network resources and we desire to allocate
them to users in order to build applications. A generic way to allocate resources is by designing virtual networks,
called slices, which are built by resource units from the available pools. For example, network functionality like
rewalls, caches, and authentication can be performed by software middleboxes, called Virtual Network Functions
(VNFs). The VNFs can run at di erent cloud locations on general purpose computing hardware, and trac can be
steered among them remotely using Software De ned Networks (SDN). Combining these two enabling technologies,
VNFs and SDN, it becomes possible to launch applications when-and-where, satisfying diverse and demanding
requirements, in the form of network slices. In this lecture we give the de nition of the Virtual Network Embedding problem, which can be used to determine
the optimal resource allocation for virtual networks. We also provide a proof of the complexity of this problem in
the case of splittable flows.
Lecture Notes:
Lecture Notes part 4
Lecture Slides:
Lecture Slides part 4
