Integrating Blockchain and SDN for Centrality-Aware Virtual Multicast Tree Embedding

Abstract

Recent innovations in network virtualization have made it possible to support multiple tenants, or 'virtual net-works;' on a single physical infrastructure. This is feasible due to the decoupling of network services from the actual hardware design. The intricate NP-Hard problem known as Virtual Network Embedding (VNE) requires the simultaneous avail-ability of certain network resources (e.g., bandwidth, computing capacity) and the mapping of virtual network components (e.g., virtual nodes and links) onto an existing Substrate Network (SN). In contrast to the classic VNE problem, which is centered on unicast communication, this research aims to efficiently map Virtual Networks (VNs) with one-to-many (multicast) interactions onto an SN using Virtual Multicast Trees (VMTs). To embed VMTs onto a shared SN, we provide a Centrality-Aware Blockchain Infrastructure for Virtual Multicast Tree Embedding (CBI-VMTE). This approach uses a blockchain-based centrality-aware path-finding mechanism. The goal of the CBI-VMTE architecture is to satisfy the processing needs of virtual nodes while minimizing the SN's use of network resources, especially bandwidth. In a wide range of network topologies, including NSFNET, US Backbone, Random-14, and Random-24-nodes, our approach outperforms dynamic node ranking and traditional greedy-based VMTE approaches in terms of bandwidth efficiency. © 2025 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.