Carrier-scale programmable networks : Wholesaler platform and resource optimization

This paper explores the potential benefits of programmable networks for telecommunication carriers. It particularly focuses on using a programmable network to offer a new type of wholesale product by adding value to the wholesale of pure carriage. By augmenting the wholesale of carriage with the wholesale of network-based computation, the need for server overlay deployment to support retail service providers is reduced or eliminated. The paper develops an efficient algorithm for allocation and management of computation and transport resources within the network infrastructure. This algorithm is designed to optimize a large network supporting many retail service providers and can be used by the wholesaler for the optimal management of scarce computational and transport resources. The algorithm is based on the Lagrangian relaxation method and provides error bounds so that the accuracy of the solution can be ascertained. Numerical results are presented and the benefit of the optimization for a simple multi-service scenario is assessed.