The mapping of a virtual network service onto a physical network infrastructure is a
challenging task due to the joint allocation of virtual resources across nodes and links, the
diverse technical requirements of end-users, the coordination between multiple host
domains, and others. This issue is exacerbated further by the extension of virtualization to
the next-generation radio access network (NG-RAN) architecture and the provisioning of
radio access network (RAN) slicing. To that end, this article focuses on the mapping problem …