Doubling or Splitting: Strategies for Modeling and Analyzing Survivable Network Design Problems

Survivability is becoming an increasingly important criterion in network design. This paper studies formulations, heuristic worst-case performance, and linear programming relaxations for two classes of survivable network design problems: the low connectivity Steiner (LCS) problem for graphs containing nodes with connectivity requirement of 0, 1, or 2, and a more general multi-connected network with branches (MNB) that requires connectivities of two or more for certain (critical) nodes and single connectivity for other secondary nodes. We consider both unitary and nonunitary MNB problems that respectively require a connected design or permit multiple components. Using a doubling argument, we first show how to generalize heuristic bounds of the Steiner tree and traveling salesman problems to LCS problems. We then develop a disaggregate formulation for the MNB problem that uses fractional edge selection variables to split the total connectivity requirement across each critical cutset into two separate requirements. This model, which is tighter than the usual cutset formulation, has three special cases: a "secondary-peeling" version that peels off the lowest connectivity level, a "connectivity-dividing" version that divides the connectivity requirements for all the critical cutsets, and a "secondarycompletion" version that attempts to separate the design decisions for the multi-connected network from those for the branches. We examine the tightness of the linear programming relaxations for these extended formulations, and then use them to analyze heuristics for the LCS and MNB problems. Our analysis strengthens some previously known heuristic-to-IP worst-case performance ratios for LCS and MNB problems by showing that the same bounds apply to the heuristic-to-LP ratios using our stronger formulations

A knowledge-based system with learning for computer communication network design

Computer communication network design is well-known as complex and hard. For that reason, the most effective methods used to solve it are heuristic. Weaknesses of these techniques are listed and a new approach based on artificial intelligence for solving this problem is presented. This approach is particularly recommended for large packet switched communication networks, in the sense that it permits a high degree of reliability and offers a very flexible environment dealing with many relevant design parameters such as link cost, link capacity, and message delay

Spatial optimization for land use allocation: accounting for sustainability concerns

Land-use allocation has long been an important area of research in regional science. Land-use patterns are fundamental to the functions of the biosphere, creating interactions that have substantial impacts on the environment. The spatial arrangement of land uses therefore has implications for activity and travel within a region. Balancing development, economic growth, social interaction, and the protection of the natural environment is at the heart of long-term sustainability. Since land-use patterns are spatially explicit in nature, planning and management necessarily must integrate geographical information system and spatial optimization in meaningful ways if efficiency goals and objectives are to be achieved. This article reviews spatial optimization approaches that have been relied upon to support land-use planning. Characteristics of sustainable land use, particularly compactness, contiguity, and compatibility, are discussed and how spatial optimization techniques have addressed these characteristics are detailed. In particular, objectives and constraints in spatial optimization approaches are examined

Merlin: A Language for Provisioning Network Resources

This paper presents Merlin, a new framework for managing resources in software-defined networks. With Merlin, administrators express high-level policies using programs in a declarative language. The language includes logical predicates to identify sets of packets, regular expressions to encode forwarding paths, and arithmetic formulas to specify bandwidth constraints. The Merlin compiler uses a combination of advanced techniques to translate these policies into code that can be executed on network elements including a constraint solver that allocates bandwidth using parameterizable heuristics. To facilitate dynamic adaptation, Merlin provides mechanisms for delegating control of sub-policies and for verifying that modifications made to sub-policies do not violate global constraints. Experiments demonstrate the expressiveness and scalability of Merlin on real-world topologies and applications. Overall, Merlin simplifies network administration by providing high-level abstractions for specifying network policies and scalable infrastructure for enforcing them