An optimal design of multi-protocol label switching networks achieving reliability requirements

Abstract

The multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) networks have been widely applied in the backbone network in recent years with offering better Quality-of -Service (QoS). The reliability of MPLS networks is of great importance. In this paper, we consider optimal design for MPLS networks, where working and backup paths are optimally selected to minimize networks’ constructing costs under reliability constraints. As both the networks’ constructing costs and the network reliability are related to the lengths of the selected paths, the optimal network design problem is decoupled into two sub-problems: the cost related and the reliability related problems, where the cost related problem has been solved by Sohn et al.. Considering the reliability related problem, we proposed a reliability related algorithm to optimally search for the working and backup paths by greatly reducing the searching space. Both the cost related and the reliability related problems can be solved using the same searching criteria, so the optimal set of the working and backup paths of the proposed problem can be derived by comparing the results obtained from the cost related and reliability related problems. Numerical examples are also provided to verify the reliability related algorithm and the whole multi-path transmission design approach.