Bandwidth provisioning for service overlay networks

In this paper we study the bandwidth provisioning problem for a service overlay network which buys bandwidth from the underlying network domains to provide end-to-end value-added QoS sensitive services such as VoIP and Video-on-Demand. A key problem in the SON deployment is the problem of bandwidth provisioning, which is critical to the cost recovery in deploying and operating value-added services over the SON. In this paper, we mathematically formulate the bandwidth provisioning problem, taking into account various factors such as SLA, service QoS, traffic demand distributions, and bandwidth costs. Analytical models and approximate solutions are developed for long-term static bandwidth provisioning. Numerical studies are also performed to illustrate the properties of the proposed solution and demonstrate the effect of traffic demand distributions and bandwidth costs on the bandwidth provisioning of a SON.