On the computational complexity and effectiveness of N-hub shortest-path routing

Abstract-- In this paper we study the computational complexity and effectiveness of a concept we term "N-hub ShortestPath Routing" in IP networks. N-hub Shortest-Path Routing allows the ingress node of a routing domain to determine up to N intermediate nodes ("hubs") through which a packet will traverse before reaching its final destination. This facilitates better utilization of the network resources, while allowing the network routers to continue to employ the simple and wellknown shortest-path routing paradigm. This concept has been suggested in the past but this paper is the first to offer an in-depth investigation of it. We apply this concept to the routing problem of minimizing the maximum load in the network. We show that the resulting routing problem is a difficult (NP-Complete) problem and that it is also hard to approximate. However, we propose efficient algorithms for solving this problem both in the online and the offline contexts. Our results show that ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: TON
• Authors: Reuven Cohen, Gabi Nakibly
• Keywords: Routing, Routing Problem, TON 2008, Wellknown Shortest-path Routing