Avoiding Loops and Packet Losses in ISP Networks

Even in well managed Large ISP networks failures of links and routers are common Due to these failures the routers update their routing tables Transient loops can occur in the networks when the routers adapt their forwarding tables In this paper a new approach is proposed that lets the network converge to its optimal state without loops and the related packet lossless The mechanism OUTFC-Ordered Updating Technique with Fast Convergence is based on an ordering of the updates of the forwarding tables of the routers and fast convergence Typically we have chosen a Network consisting of routers and Link costs for simulation Link failures are simulated Avoiding transient loops in each case is demonstrated by constructing a Reverse Shortest PathTree RSP

Fast emergency paths schema to overcome transient link failures in ospf routing

A reliable network infrastructure must be able to sustain traffic flows, even when a failure occurs and changes the network topology. During the occurrence of a failure, routing protocols, like OSPF, take from hundreds of milliseconds to various seconds in order to converge. During this convergence period, packets might traverse a longer path or even a loop. An even worse transient behaviour is that packets are dropped even though destinations are reachable. In this context, this paper describes a proactive fast rerouting approach, named Fast Emergency Paths Schema (FEP-S), to overcome problems originating from transient link failures in OSPF routing. Extensive experiments were done using several network topologies with different dimensionality degrees. Results show that the recovery paths, obtained by FEPS, are shorter than those from other rerouting approaches and can improve the network reliability by reducing the packet loss rate during the routing protocols convergence caused by a failure.Comment: 18 page

Survey of Consistent Network Updates

Computer networks have become a critical infrastructure. Designing dependable computer networks however is challenging, as such networks should not only meet strict requirements in terms of correctness, availability, and performance, but they should also be flexible enough to support fast updates, e.g., due to a change in the security policy, an increasing traffic demand, or a failure. The advent of Software-Defined Networks (SDNs) promises to provide such flexiblities, allowing to update networks in a fine-grained manner, also enabling a more online traffic engineering. In this paper, we present a structured survey of mechanisms and protocols to update computer networks in a fast and consistent manner. In particular, we identify and discuss the different desirable update consistency properties a network should provide, the algorithmic techniques which are needed to meet these consistency properties, their implications on the speed and costs at which updates can be performed. We also discuss the relationship of consistent network update problems to classic algorithmic optimization problems. While our survey is mainly motivated by the advent of Software-Defined Networks (SDNs), the fundamental underlying problems are not new, and we also provide a historical perspective of the subject

Reinforcing Reachable Routes

This paper studies the evaluation of routing algorithms from the perspective of reachability routing, where the goal is to determine all paths between a sender and a receiver. Reachability routing is becoming relevant with the changing dynamics of the Internet and the emergence of low-bandwidth wireless/ad-hoc networks. We make the case for reinforcement learning as the framework of choice to realize reachability routing, within the confines of the current Internet infrastructure. The setting of the reinforcement learning problem offers several advantages,including loop resolution, multi-path forwarding capability, cost-sensitive routing, and minimizing state overhead, while maintaining the incremental spirit of current backbone routing algorithms. We identify research issues in reinforcement learning applied to the reachability routing problem to achieve a fluid and robust backbone routing framework. This paper also presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a new reachability routing algorithm that uses a model-based approach to achieve cost-sensitive multi-path forwarding; performance assessment of the algorithm in various troublesome topologies shows consistently superior performance over classical reinforcement learning algorithms. The paper is targeted toward practitioners seeking to implement a reachability routing algorithm

Distributed Path Computation without Transient Loops: An Intermediate Variables Approach

Paths with loops, even transient ones, pose significant stability problems in networks. As a result, much effort has been devoted over the past thirty years to designing distributed algorithms capable of avoiding loops. We present a new algorithm, Distributed path computation with Intermediate Variables (DIV), that guarantees that no loops, transient or steady-state, can ever form. DIV’s novelty is in that it is not restricted to shortest paths, can easily handle arbitrary sequences of changes and updates, and provably outperforms earlier approaches in several key metrics. In addition, when used with distance-vector style path computation algorithms, DIV also prevents counting-to-infinity; hence further improving convergence. The paper introduces DIV and its key properties. Simulation quantifying its performance gains are also presented