DeepVNE: Deep Reinforcement and Graph Convolution Fusion for Virtual Network Embedding

Abstract

Network virtualization (NV) plays a crucial role in modern network management. One of the fundamental challenges in NV is allocating physical network (PN) resources to the demands of the virtual network requests (VNRs). This process is known as a virtual network embedding (VNE) and is NP-hard. Most of the existing approaches for VNE are based on heuristic, meta-heuristic, and exact strategies with limited flexibility and the risk of being stuck in local optimal solutions. In this concern, we provide a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) and graph convolution network (GCN) fusion for VNE (DeepVNE) for maximizing the revenue-to-cost ratio. The DeepVNE takes advantage of the power of actor-critic models within the DRL framework to detect network states and provide optimal solutions matched to current conditions. DeepVNE effectively captures the structural dependencies of both VNRs and PN resources by GCNs, allowing better decision-making during the embedding. Considering several features in the agents throughout the training phase improves resource utilization. The experiments show that DeepVNE outperforms the baselines by gaining a 51% acceptance ratio and 28% revenue-to-cost ratio. © 2024 IEEE.