Network protocol scalability via a topological Kadanoff transformation

A natural hierarchical framework for network topology abstraction is presented based on an analogy with the Kadanoff transformation and renormalisation group in theoretical physics. Some properties of the renormalisation group bear similarities to the scalability properties of network routing protocols (interactions). Central to our abstraction are two intimately connected and complementary path diversity units: simple cycles, and cycle adjacencies. A recursive network abstraction procedure is presented, together with an associated generic recursive routing protocol family that offers many desirable features.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, PhysComNet 2008 workshop submissio

The Internet's unexploited path diversity

The connectivity of the Internet at the Autonomous System level is influenced by the network operator policies implemented. These in turn impose a direction to the announcement of address advertisements and, consequently, to the paths that can be used to reach back such destinations. We propose to use directed graphs to properly represent how destinations propagate through the Internet and the number of arc-disjoint paths to quantify this network's path diversity. Moreover, in order to understand the effects that policies have on the connectivity of the Internet, numerical analyses of the resulting directed graphs were conducted. Results demonstrate that, even after policies have been applied, there is still path diversity which the Border Gateway Protocol cannot currently exploit.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Communications Letter