Restorable VP-layout design in ATM networks for efficient support for multicast traffic

Abstract

The authors present a new network design problem that is applicable for designing restorable virtual paths (VPs) in an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network to efficiently support multicast applications. They decompose the design procedure into two main phases: working VP layout (VPL) and backup VPL design phases. For the working VPL design phase, the design objective is to minimise the network overhead for the connection setup, routing table resources and control and management cost subject to the physical constraints. A heuristic is proposed to obtain a good working VPL. Based on the designed working VPL, a backup VPL is designed for restoring the connections in case of link failure in the second design phase. The design objective is to minimise the spare capacity cost. Two backup VPL design schemes, namely link-based backup VPL and tree-based backup VPL, are proposed to achieve a sub-optimal solution for backup VPL design. The tree-based scheme has a better spare capacity performance, while the link-based scheme has a shorter restoration time and a lower computing complexity. Simulations are performed on randomly generated networks and traffic demand patterns to demonstrate the performance and scalability of the solution.