This paper describes a methodology for designing interconnected LAN-MAN networks with the objective of minimizing the average network delay. We consider IEEE 802.3-5 LANs interconnected by transparent bridges. These bridges are required to form a spanning tree topology. The optimization algorithm for finding a minimum delay spanning tree topology is based on simulated annealing. In order to measure the quality of the solutions, we find a lower bound for the average network delay. The comparison of our results with this lower bound and several other goodness measures show that the solutions are not very far from the global minimum. We extend our algorithm for finding minimum delay LAN-MAN topologies consisting of FDDI MANS or Switched Multi-Megabit Data Service (SMDS) interconnecting several clusters of bridged LANs.
Cem Ersoy, Shivendra S. Panwar