Local heuristic for the refinement of multi-path routing in wireless mesh networks

We consider wireless mesh networks and the problem of routing end-to-end traffic over multiple paths for the same origin-destination pair with minimal interference. We introduce a heuristic for path determination with two distinguishing characteristics. First, it works by refining an extant set of paths, determined previously by a single- or multi-path routing algorithm. Second, it is totally local, in the sense that it can be run by each of the origins on information that is available no farther than the node's immediate neighborhood. We have conducted extensive computational experiments with the new heuristic, using AODV and OLSR, as well as their multi-path variants, as underlying routing methods. For two different CSMA settings (as implemented by 802.11) and one TDMA setting running a path-oriented link scheduling algorithm, we have demonstrated that the new heuristic is capable of improving the average throughput network-wide. When working from the paths generated by the multi-path routing algorithms, the heuristic is also capable to provide a more evenly distributed traffic pattern

Segment Routing: a Comprehensive Survey of Research Activities, Standardization Efforts and Implementation Results

Fixed and mobile telecom operators, enterprise network operators and cloud providers strive to face the challenging demands coming from the evolution of IP networks (e.g. huge bandwidth requirements, integration of billions of devices and millions of services in the cloud). Proposed in the early 2010s, Segment Routing (SR) architecture helps face these challenging demands, and it is currently being adopted and deployed. SR architecture is based on the concept of source routing and has interesting scalability properties, as it dramatically reduces the amount of state information to be configured in the core nodes to support complex services. SR architecture was first implemented with the MPLS dataplane and then, quite recently, with the IPv6 dataplane (SRv6). IPv6 SR architecture (SRv6) has been extended from the simple steering of packets across nodes to a general network programming approach, making it very suitable for use cases such as Service Function Chaining and Network Function Virtualization. In this paper we present a tutorial and a comprehensive survey on SR technology, analyzing standardization efforts, patents, research activities and implementation results. We start with an introduction on the motivations for Segment Routing and an overview of its evolution and standardization. Then, we provide a tutorial on Segment Routing technology, with a focus on the novel SRv6 solution. We discuss the standardization efforts and the patents providing details on the most important documents and mentioning other ongoing activities. We then thoroughly analyze research activities according to a taxonomy. We have identified 8 main categories during our analysis of the current state of play: Monitoring, Traffic Engineering, Failure Recovery, Centrally Controlled Architectures, Path Encoding, Network Programming, Performance Evaluation and Miscellaneous...Comment: SUBMITTED TO IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SURVEYS & TUTORIAL

Towards an Economic Analysis of Routing in Payment Channel Networks

Payment channel networks are supposed to overcome technical scalability limitations of blockchain infrastructure by employing a special overlay network with fast payment confirmation and only sporadic settlement of netted transactions on the blockchain. However, they introduce economic routing constraints that limit decentralized scalability and are currently not well understood. In this paper, we model the economic incentives for participants in payment channel networks. We provide the first formal model of payment channel economics and analyze how the cheapest path can be found. Additionally, our simulation assesses the long-term evolution of a payment channel network. We find that even for small routing fees, sometimes it is cheaper to settle the transaction directly on the blockchain.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, SERIAL '17 Worksho