Virtual Network Embedding (VNE) is a key enabler of network slicing, yet most formulations assume that each Virtual Network Request (VNR) has a fixed topology. Recently, VNE with Alternative topologies (VNEAP) was introduced to capture malleable VNRs, where each request can be instantiated using one of several functionally equivalent topologies that trade resources differently. While this flexibility enlarges the feasible space, it also introduces an additional decision layer, making dynamic embedding more challenging. This paper proposes HRL-VNEAP, a hierarchical reinforcement learning approach for VNEAP under dynamic arrivals. A high-level policy selects the most suitable alternative topology (or rejects the request), and a low-level policy embeds the chosen topology onto the substrate network. Experiments on realistic substrate topologies under multiple traffic loads show that naive exploitation strategies provide only modest gains, whereas HRL-VNEAP consistently achieves the best performance across all metrics. Compared to the strongest tested baselines, HRL-VNEAP improves acceptance ratio by up to \textbf{20.7\%}, total revenue by up to \textbf{36.2\%}, and revenue-over-cost by up to \textbf{22.1\%}. Finally, we benchmark against an MILP formulation on tractable instances to quantify the remaining gap to optimality and motivate future work on learning- and optimization-based VNEAP solutions.

With the development of science and technology and the need for Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM), the optimization problem to be solved becomes extremely complex. The theoretically accurate and optimal solutions are often difficult to obtain. Therefore, meta-heuristic algorithms based on multi-point search have received extensive attention. Aiming at these problems, the design strategy of hybrid flower pollination algorithm for Virtual Network Embedding (VNE) problem is discussed. Combining the advantages of the Genetic Algorithm (GA) and FPA, the algorithm is optimized for the characteristics of discrete optimization problems. The cross operation is used to replace the cross-pollination operation to complete the global search and replace the mutation operation with self-pollination operation to enhance the ability of local search. Moreover, a life cycle mechanism is introduced as a complement to the traditional fitness-based selection strategy to avoid premature convergence. A chaotic optimization strategy is introduced to replace the random sequence-guided crossover process to strengthen the global search capability and reduce the probability of producing invalid individuals.

Virtual network embedding is one of the key problems of network virtualization. Since virtual network mapping is an NP-hard problem, a lot of research has focused on the evolutionary algorithm's masterpiece genetic algorithm. However, the parameter setting in the traditional method is too dependent on experience, and its low flexibility makes it unable to adapt to increasingly complex network environments. In addition, link-mapping strategies that do not consider load balancing can easily cause link blocking in high-traffic environments. In the IoT environment involving medical, disaster relief, life support and other equipment, network performance and stability are particularly important. Therefore, how to provide a more flexible virtual network mapping service in a heterogeneous network environment with large traffic is an urgent problem. Aiming at this problem, a virtual network mapping strategy based on hybrid genetic algorithm is proposed. This strategy uses a dynamically calculated cross-probability and pheromone-based mutation gene selection strategy to improve the flexibility of the algorithm. In addition, a weight update mechanism based on load balancing is introduced to reduce the probability of mapping failure while balancing the load. Simulation results show that the proposed method performs well in a number of performance metrics including mapping average quotation, link load balancing, mapping cost-benefit ratio, acceptance rate and running time.

The wireless network communication mode represented by the Internet of vehicles (IoV) has been widely used. However, due to the limitations of traditional network architecture, resource scheduling in wireless network environment is still facing great challenges. This paper focuses on the allocation of bandwidth resources in the virtual network environment. This paper proposes a bandwidth aware multi domain virtual network embedding algorithm (BA-VNE). The algorithm is mainly aimed at the problem that users need a lot of bandwidth in wireless communication mode, and solves the problem of bandwidth resource allocation from the perspective of virtual network embedding (VNE). In order to improve the performance of the algorithm, we introduce particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm to optimize the performance of the algorithm. In order to verify the effectiveness of the algorithm, we have carried out simulation experiments from link bandwidth, mapping cost and virtual network request (VNR) acceptance rate. The final results show that the proposed algorithm is better than other representative algorithms in the above indicators.

Virtual network embedding (VNE) algorithm is always the key problem in network virtualization (NV) technology. At present, the research in this field still has the following problems. The traditional way to solve VNE problem is to use heuristic algorithm. However, this method relies on manual embedding rules, which does not accord with the actual situation of VNE. In addition, as the use of intelligent learning algorithm to solve the problem of VNE has become a trend, this method is gradually outdated. At the same time, there are some security problems in VNE. However, there is no intelligent algorithm to solve the security problem of VNE. For this reason, this paper proposes a security-aware VNE algorithm based on reinforcement learning (RL). In the training phase, we use a policy network as a learning agent and take the extracted attributes of the substrate nodes to form a feature matrix as input. The learning agent is trained in this environment to get the mapping probability of each substrate node. In the test phase, we map nodes according to the mapping probability and use the breadth-first strategy (BFS) to map links. For the security problem, we add security requirements level constraint for each virtual node and security level constraint for each substrate node. Virtual nodes can only be embedded on substrate nodes that are not lower than the level of security requirements. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is superior to other typical algorithms in terms of long-term average return, long-term revenue consumption ratio and virtual network request (VNR) acceptance rate.