Energy efficient resource allocation based on virtual network embedding for IoT data generation

The Internet of Things (IoT) has become a core driver leading technological advancements and social transformations. Furthermore, data generation plays multiple roles in IoT, such as driving decision-making, achieving intelligence, promoting innovation, improving user experience, and ensuring security, making it a critical factor in promoting the development and application of IoT. Due to the vast scale of the network and the complexity of device interconnection, effective resource allocation has become crucial. Leveraging the flexibility of Network Virtualization technology in decoupling network functions and resources, this work proposes a Multi-Domain Virtual Network Embedding algorithm based on Deep Reinforcement Learning to provide energy-efficient resource allocation decision-making for IoT data generation. Specifically, we deploy a four-layer structured agent to calculate candidate IoT nodes and links that meet data generation requirements. Moreover, the agent is guided by the reward mechanism and gradient back-propagation algorithm for optimization. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through simulation experiments. Compared with other methods, our method improves the long-term revenue, long-term resource utilization, and allocation success rate by 15.78%, 15.56%, and 6.78%, respectively.