The splittable flow arc set with capacity and minimum load constraints

Cataloged from PDF version of article.We study the convex hull of the splittable flow arc set with capacity and minimum load constraints. This set arises as a relaxation of problems where clients have demand for a resource that can be installed in integer amounts and that has capacity limitations and lower bounds on utilization. We prove that the convex hull of this set is the intersection of the convex hull of the set with a capacity constraint and the convex hull of the set with a minimum load constraint

Energy management in communication networks: a journey through modelling and optimization glasses

The widespread proliferation of Internet and wireless applications has produced a significant increase of ICT energy footprint. As a response, in the last five years, significant efforts have been undertaken to include energy-awareness into network management. Several green networking frameworks have been proposed by carefully managing the network routing and the power state of network devices. Even though approaches proposed differ based on network technologies and sleep modes of nodes and interfaces, they all aim at tailoring the active network resources to the varying traffic needs in order to minimize energy consumption. From a modeling point of view, this has several commonalities with classical network design and routing problems, even if with different objectives and in a dynamic context. With most researchers focused on addressing the complex and crucial technological aspects of green networking schemes, there has been so far little attention on understanding the modeling similarities and differences of proposed solutions. This paper fills the gap surveying the literature with optimization modeling glasses, following a tutorial approach that guides through the different components of the models with a unified symbolism. A detailed classification of the previous work based on the modeling issues included is also proposed

Routing Games with Progressive Filling

Max-min fairness (MMF) is a widely known approach to a fair allocation of bandwidth to each of the users in a network. This allocation can be computed by uniformly raising the bandwidths of all users without violating capacity constraints. We consider an extension of these allocations by raising the bandwidth with arbitrary and not necessarily uniform time-depending velocities (allocation rates). These allocations are used in a game-theoretic context for routing choices, which we formalize in progressive filling games (PFGs). We present a variety of results for equilibria in PFGs. We show that these games possess pure Nash and strong equilibria. While computation in general is NP-hard, there are polynomial-time algorithms for prominent classes of Max-Min-Fair Games (MMFG), including the case when all users have the same source-destination pair. We characterize prices of anarchy and stability for pure Nash and strong equilibria in PFGs and MMFGs when players have different or the same source-destination pairs. In addition, we show that when a designer can adjust allocation rates, it is possible to design games with optimal strong equilibria. Some initial results on polynomial-time algorithms in this direction are also derived

path-constrained network flows

This thesis focuses on approximation algorithms and complexity assessments concerning network flows. It deals with various network flow problems with path restrictions. These restrictions cover the number of paths that are used to route commodities as well as the amount of flow that is routed along a single path or the path's length. Concerning the first restriction we study the unsplittable flow problem-a generalization of the NP-hard edge-disjoint paths problem. Given a network with commodities that must be routed from their sources to their sinks, the unsplittable flow problem forbids each commodity to use more than one path. For this problem we prove a new lower bound on the performance guarantee of randomized rounding which so far belongs to the best approximation algorithms known for this problem. Further, we present an interesting relation between unsplittable flows and classical (splittable) multicommodity flows in the case that all commodities share a common source: Each single source multicommodity flow can be represented as a convex combination of unsplittable flows of congestion at most 2. Further, we combine different path restrictions from the ones mentioned above. In the k-splittable flow problem with path capacities, we study the NP-hard problem that each commodity may be sent along a limited number of paths while the flow value of each path is bounded. This yields a generalization of the unsplittable flow problem, but we show how one can obtain the same asymptotic approximation ratios. For the length-bounded k-splittable flow problem, we consider the single commodity case and develop a constant factor approximation algorithm. A crucial characteristic of network flows occurring in real-world applications is flow variation over time and the fact that flow does not travel instantaneously through a network but requires a certain amount of time to travel through each arc. Both characteristics are captured by "flows over time" which specify a flow rate for each arc and each point in time. We consider the quickest single commodity k-splittable flow problem and give a constant factor approximation algorithm for it. So far only results for k-splittable flows as well as for length-bounded flows and flows over time have been known, but nothing was known for combinations of them. Bounding the flow value of each path is also interesting in the classical maximum s-t-flow problem. We study the case that each path may carry at most one unit of flow and prove that this restriction makes the maximum s-t-flow problem strongly NP-hard. In contrast to the classical maximum s-t-flow problem, the fractional and the integral problem diverge strongly with the new restriction. For the integral problem, we even prove APX-hardness. We develop an FPTAS for the fractional problem and an O(log m)-approximation algorithm for the integral one. (Here, m is the number of arcs in the network under consideration.) Similar results emerge for the multicommodity case. For the objective to find a maximum integral multicommodity flow our asymptotic approximation ratio of O(m^{0.5}) is proven to be best possible, unless P = NP

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

Robust network design under polyhedral traffic uncertainty

Ankara : The Department of Industrial Engineering and The Institute of Engineering and Science of Bilkent Univ., 2007.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Bilkent University, 2007.Includes bibliographical references leaves 160-166.In this thesis, we study the design of networks robust to changes in demand estimates. We consider the case where the set of feasible demands is defined by an arbitrary polyhedron. Our motivation is to determine link capacity or routing configurations, which remain feasible for any realization in the corresponding demand polyhedron. We consider three well-known problems under polyhedral demand uncertainty all of which are posed as semi-infinite mixed integer programming problems. We develop explicit, compact formulations for all three problems as well as alternative formulations and exact solution methods. The first problem arises in the Virtual Private Network (VPN) design field. We present compact linear mixed-integer programming formulations for the problem with the classical hose traffic model and for a new, less conservative, robust variant relying on accessible traffic statistics. Although we can solve these formulations for medium-to-large instances in reasonable times using off-the-shelf MIP solvers, we develop a combined branch-and-price and cutting plane algorithm to handle larger instances. We also provide an extensive discussion of our numerical results. Next, we study the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) routing enhanced with traffic engineering tools under general demand uncertainty with the motivation to discuss if OSPF could be made comparable to the general unconstrained routing (MPLS) when it is provided with a less restrictive operating environment. To the best of our knowledge, these two routing mechanisms are compared for the first time under such a general setting. We provide compact formulations for both routing types and show that MPLS routing for polyhedral demands can be computed in polynomial time. Moreover, we present a specialized branchand-price algorithm strengthened with the inclusion of cuts as an exact solution tool. Subsequently, we compare the new and more flexible OSPF routing with MPLS as well as the traditional OSPF on several network instances. We observe that the management tools we use in OSPF make it significantly better than the generic OSPF. Moreover, we show that OSPF performance can get closer to that of MPLS in some cases. Finally, we consider the Network Loading Problem (NLP) under a polyhedral uncertainty description of traffic demands. After giving a compact multicommodity formulation of the problem, we prove an unexpected decomposition property obtained from projecting out the flow variables, considerably simplifying the resulting polyhedral analysis and computations by doing away with metric inequalities, an attendant feature of most successful algorithms on NLP. Under the hose model of feasible demands, we study the polyhedral aspects of NLP, used as the basis of an efficient branch-and-cut algorithm supported by a simple heuristic for generating upper bounds. We provide the results of extensive computational experiments on well-known network design instances.Altın, AyşegülPh.D