Walking Through Waypoints

We initiate the study of a fundamental combinatorial problem: Given a capacitated graph $G=(V,E)$, find a shortest walk ("route") from a source $s\in V$ to a destination $t\in V$ that includes all vertices specified by a set $\mathscr{W}\subseteq V$: the \emph{waypoints}. This waypoint routing problem finds immediate applications in the context of modern networked distributed systems. Our main contribution is an exact polynomial-time algorithm for graphs of bounded treewidth. We also show that if the number of waypoints is logarithmically bounded, exact polynomial-time algorithms exist even for general graphs. Our two algorithms provide an almost complete characterization of what can be solved exactly in polynomial-time: we show that more general problems (e.g., on grid graphs of maximum degree 3, with slightly more waypoints) are computationally intractable

Distributed Consistent Network Updates in SDNs: Local Verification for Global Guarantees

While SDNs enable more flexible and adaptive network operations, (logically) centralized reconfigurations introduce overheads and delays, which can limit network reactivity. This paper initiates the study of a more distributed approach, in which the consistent network updates are implemented by the switches and routers directly in the data plane. In particular, our approach leverages concepts from local proof labeling systems, which allows the data plane elements to locally check network properties, and we show that this is sufficient to obtain global network guarantees. We demonstrate our approach considering three fundamental use cases, and analyze its benefits in terms of performance and fault-tolerance.Comment: Appears in IEEE NCA 201

Maximally Resilient Replacement Paths for a Family of Product Graphs

Modern communication networks support fast path restoration mechanisms which allow to reroute traffic in case of (possibly multiple) link failures, in a completely decentralized manner and without requiring global route reconvergence. However, devising resilient path restoration algorithms is challenging as these algorithms need to be inherently local. Furthermore, the resulting failover paths often have to fulfill additional requirements related to the policy and function implemented by the network, such as the traversal of certain waypoints (e.g., a firewall). This paper presents local algorithms which ensure a maximally resilient path restoration for a large family of product graphs, including the widely used tori and generalized hypercube topologies. Our algorithms provably ensure that even under multiple link failures, traffic is rerouted to the other endpoint of every failed link whenever possible (i.e. detouring failed links), enforcing waypoints and hence accounting for the network policy. The algorithms are particularly well-suited for emerging segment routing networks based on label stacks

Brief Announcement: Minimizing Congestion in Hybrid Demand-Aware Network Topologies

Emerging reconfigurable optical communication technologies enable demand-aware networks: networks whose static topology can be enhanced with demand-aware links optimized towards the traffic pattern the network serves. This paper studies the algorithmic problem of how to jointly optimize the topology and the routing in such demand-aware networks, to minimize congestion. We investigate this problem along two dimensions: (1) whether flows are splittable or unsplittable, and (2) whether routing on the hybrid topology is segregated or not, i.e., whether or not flows either have to use exclusively either the static network or the demand-aware connections. For splittable and segregated routing, we show that the problem is 2-approximable in general, but APX-hard even for uniform demands induced by a bipartite demand graph. For unsplittable and segregated routing, we show an upper bound of O(log m/ log log m) and a lower bound of ?(log m/ log log m) for polynomial-time approximation algorithms, where m is the number of static links. Under splittable (resp., unsplittable) and non-segregated routing, even for demands of a single source (resp., destination), the problem cannot be approximated better than ?(c_{max}/c_{min}) unless P=NP, where c_{max} (resp., c_{min}) denotes the maximum (resp., minimum) capacity. It is still NP-hard for uniform capacities, but can be solved efficiently for a single commodity and uniform capacities