31,553 research outputs found
Shortest Path versus Multi-Hub Routing in Networks with Uncertain Demand
We study a class of robust network design problems motivated by the need to
scale core networks to meet increasingly dynamic capacity demands. Past work
has focused on designing the network to support all hose matrices (all matrices
not exceeding marginal bounds at the nodes). This model may be too conservative
if additional information on traffic patterns is available. Another extreme is
the fixed demand model, where one designs the network to support peak
point-to-point demands. We introduce a capped hose model to explore a broader
range of traffic matrices which includes the above two as special cases. It is
known that optimal designs for the hose model are always determined by
single-hub routing, and for the fixed- demand model are based on shortest-path
routing. We shed light on the wider space of capped hose matrices in order to
see which traffic models are more shortest path-like as opposed to hub-like. To
address the space in between, we use hierarchical multi-hub routing templates,
a generalization of hub and tree routing. In particular, we show that by adding
peak capacities into the hose model, the single-hub tree-routing template is no
longer cost-effective. This initiates the study of a class of robust network
design (RND) problems restricted to these templates. Our empirical analysis is
based on a heuristic for this new hierarchical RND problem. We also propose
that it is possible to define a routing indicator that accounts for the
strengths of the marginals and peak demands and use this information to choose
the appropriate routing template. We benchmark our approach against other
well-known routing templates, using representative carrier networks and a
variety of different capped hose traffic demands, parameterized by the relative
importance of their marginals as opposed to their point-to-point peak demands
Adaptive Robust Traffic Engineering in Software Defined Networks
One of the key advantages of Software-Defined Networks (SDN) is the
opportunity to integrate traffic engineering modules able to optimize network
configuration according to traffic. Ideally, network should be dynamically
reconfigured as traffic evolves, so as to achieve remarkable gains in the
efficient use of resources with respect to traditional static approaches.
Unfortunately, reconfigurations cannot be too frequent due to a number of
reasons related to route stability, forwarding rules instantiation, individual
flows dynamics, traffic monitoring overhead, etc.
In this paper, we focus on the fundamental problem of deciding whether, when
and how to reconfigure the network during traffic evolution. We propose a new
approach to cluster relevant points in the multi-dimensional traffic space
taking into account similarities in optimal routing and not only in traffic
values. Moreover, to provide more flexibility to the online decisions on when
applying a reconfiguration, we allow some overlap between clusters that can
guarantee a good-quality routing regardless of the transition instant.
We compare our algorithm with state-of-the-art approaches in realistic
network scenarios. Results show that our method significantly reduces the
number of reconfigurations with a negligible deviation of the network
performance with respect to the continuous update of the network configuration.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figures, submitted to IFIP Networking 201
Robust Energy Management for Green and Survivable IP Networks
Despite the growing necessity to make Internet greener, it is worth pointing
out that energy-aware strategies to minimize network energy consumption must
not undermine the normal network operation. In particular, two very important
issues that may limit the application of green networking techniques concern,
respectively, network survivability, i.e. the network capability to react to
device failures, and robustness to traffic variations. We propose novel
modelling techniques to minimize the daily energy consumption of IP networks,
while explicitly guaranteeing, in addition to typical QoS requirements, both
network survivability and robustness to traffic variations. The impact of such
limitations on final network consumption is exhaustively investigated. Daily
traffic variations are modelled by dividing a single day into multiple time
intervals (multi-period problem), and network consumption is reduced by putting
to sleep idle line cards and chassis. To preserve network resiliency we
consider two different protection schemes, i.e. dedicated and shared
protection, according to which a backup path is assigned to each demand and a
certain amount of spare capacity has to be available on each link. Robustness
to traffic variations is provided by means of a specific modelling framework
that allows to tune the conservatism degree of the solutions and to take into
account load variations of different magnitude. Furthermore, we impose some
inter-period constraints necessary to guarantee network stability and preserve
the device lifetime. Both exact and heuristic methods are proposed.
Experimentations carried out with realistic networks operated with flow-based
routing protocols (i.e. MPLS) show that significant savings, up to 30%, can be
achieved also when both survivability and robustness are fully guaranteed
Dynamic vs Oblivious Routing in Network Design
Consider the robust network design problem of finding a minimum cost network
with enough capacity to route all traffic demand matrices in a given polytope.
We investigate the impact of different routing models in this robust setting:
in particular, we compare \emph{oblivious} routing, where the routing between
each terminal pair must be fixed in advance, to \emph{dynamic} routing, where
routings may depend arbitrarily on the current demand. Our main result is a
construction that shows that the optimal cost of such a network based on
oblivious routing (fractional or integral) may be a factor of
\BigOmega(\log{n}) more than the cost required when using dynamic routing.
This is true even in the important special case of the asymmetric hose model.
This answers a question in \cite{chekurisurvey07}, and is tight up to constant
factors. Our proof technique builds on a connection between expander graphs and
robust design for single-sink traffic patterns \cite{ChekuriHardness07}
A note on hierarchical hubbing for a generalization of the VPN problem
Robust network design refers to a class of optimization problems that occur
when designing networks to efficiently handle variable demands. The notion of
"hierarchical hubbing" was introduced (in the narrow context of a specific
robust network design question), by Olver and Shepherd [2010]. Hierarchical
hubbing allows for routings with a multiplicity of "hubs" which are connected
to the terminals and to each other in a treelike fashion. Recently, Fr\'echette
et al. [2013] explored this notion much more generally, focusing on its
applicability to an extension of the well-studied hose model that allows for
upper bounds on individual point-to-point demands. In this paper, we consider
hierarchical hubbing in the context of a previously studied (and extremely
natural) generalization of the hose model, and prove that the optimal
hierarchical hubbing solution can be found efficiently. This result is relevant
to a recently proposed generalization of the "VPN Conjecture".Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur
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