Balancing performance, robustness and flexibility in routing systems

Modern networks face the challenging task of handling increasingly diverse traffic that is displaying a growing intolerance to disruptions. This has given rise to many initiatives, and in this paper we focus on multiple topology routing as the primary vehicle for meeting those demands. Specifically, we seek routing solutions capable of not just accommodating different performance goals, but also preserving them in the presence of disruptions. The main challenge is computational, i.e., to identify among the enormous number of possible routing solutions the one that yields the best compromise between performance and robustness. This is where our principal contribution lies, as we expand the definition of critical links a key concept in improving the efficiency of routing computation and develop a precise methodology to efficiently converge on those solutions. Using this new methodology, we demonstrate that one can compute routing solutions that are both flexible in accommodating different performance requirements and robust in maintaining them in the presence of failures and traffic fluctuations. © 2010 IEEE.