Multiobjective design of survivable IP networks

Modern communication networks often use Internet Protocol routing and the intra-domain protocol OSPF (Open Shortest Path First). The routers in such a network calculate the shortest path to each destination and send the traffic on these paths, using load balancing. The issue of survivability, i.e. the question of how much traffic the network will be able to accommodate if components fail, is increasingly important. We consider the problem of designing a survivable IP network, which also requires determining the routing of the traffic. This is done by choosing the weights used for the shortest path calculations.     

On the Hardness of Equal Shortest Path Routing

In telecommunication networks packets are carried from a source s to a destination t on a path that is determined by the underlying routing protocol. Most routing protocols belong to the class of shortest path routing protocols. In such protocols, the network operator assigns a length to each link. A packet going from s to t follows a shortest path according to these lengths. For better protection and efficiency, one wishes to use multiple (shortest) paths between two nodes. Therefore the routing protocol must determine how the traffic from s to t is distributed among the shortest paths. In the protocol called OSPF-ECMP (for Open Shortest Path First-Equal Cost Multiple Path) the traffic incoming at every node is uniformly balanced on all outgoing links that are on shortest paths. In that context, the operator task is to determine the “best” link lengths, toward a goal such as maximizing the network throughput for given link capacities.In this work, we show that the problem of maximizing even a single commodity flow for the OSPF-ECMP protocol cannot be approximated within any constant factor ratio. Besides this main theorem, we derive some positive results which include polynomial-time approximations and an exponential-time exact algorithm. We also prove that despite their weakness, our approximation and exact algorithms are, in a sense, the best possible.     

Intra-domain traffic engineering with shortest path routing protocols

Throughout the last decade, extensive deployment of popular intra-domain routing protocols such as open shortest path first and intermediate system–intermediate system, has drawn an ever increasing attention to Internet traffic engineering. This paper reviews optimization techniques that have been deployed for managing intra-domain routing in networks operated with shortest path routing protocols, and the state-of-the-art research that has been carried out in this direction.     

The maximum covering/shortest path problem: A multiobjective network design and routing formulation

In this paper the authors introduce the maximum covering/shortest path problem and the maximum population/shortest path problem, a special case of the former model. Both models are formulated as two objective integer programs. A summary of the results of a sample problem for the latter formulation is given. Possible modifications to, and extensions and applications of both models are also presented. With these formulations the authors extend the concept of ‘coverage’ from facility location analysis to network design and routing analysis.     

Intra-domain traffic engineering with shortest path routing protocols

Throughout the last decade, extensive deployment of popular intra-domain routing protocols such as open shortest path first (OSPF) and intermediate system–intermediate system (IS-IS), has drawn an ever increasing attention to internet traffic engineering. This paper reviews optimization techniques that have been deployed for managing intra-domain routing in networks operated with shortest path routing protocols, and the state-of-the-art research that has been carried out in this direction.     

Increasing Internet Capacity Using Local Search

Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) is one of the most commonly used intra-domain internet routing protocol. Traffic flow is routed along shortest paths, splitting flow evenly at nodes where several outgoing links are on shortest paths to the destination. The weights of the links, and thereby the shortest path routes, can be changed by the network operator. The weights could be set proportional to the physical lengths of the links, but often the main goal is to avoid congestion, i.e. overloading of links, and the standard heuristic recommended by Cisco (a major router vendor) is to make the weight of a link inversely proportional to its capacity.We study the problem of optimizing OSPF weights for a given a set of projected demands so as to avoid congestion. We show this problem is NP-hard, even for approximation, and propose a local search heuristic to solve it. We also provide worst-case results about the performance of OSPF routing vs. an optimal multi-commodity flow routing. Our numerical experiments compare the results obtained with our local search heuristic to the optimal multi-commodity flow routing, as well as simple and commonly used heuristics for setting the weights. Experiments were done with a proposed next-generation AT&T WorldNet backbone as well as synthetic internetworks.     

Large margin shortest path routing

A new discriminative approach to routing inspired by the large margin criterion serving as a basis for support vector machines is presented. The proposed formulation uses the benefit of the dualization convex program, and it is possible for standard solvers to learn the weighting metrics of the shortest path routing. In order to demonstrate this and due to its simplicity, the single path flow allocation problem is considered in this article. It was found that the weight settings performed within a few percent of that of the optimal general routing where the flow for each demand was optimally distributed over all paths between the source and destination.     

An exact algorithm for a vehicle routing problem with time windows and multiple use of vehicles

The vehicle routing problem with multiple use of vehicles is a variant of the classical vehicle routing problem. It arises when each vehicle performs several routes during the workday due to strict time limits on route duration (e.g., when perishable goods are transported). The routes are defined over customers with a revenue, a demand and a time window. Given a fixed-size fleet of vehicles, it might not be possible to serve all customers. Thus, the customers must be chosen based on their associated revenue minus the traveling cost to reach them. We introduce a branch-and-price approach to address this problem where lower bounds are computed by solving the linear programming relaxation of a set packing formulation, using column generation. The pricing subproblems are elementary shortest path problems with resource constraints. Computational results are reported on euclidean problems derived from well-known benchmark instances for the vehicle routing problem with time windows.     

Shortest Paths with Shortest Detours

This paper is concerned with a biobjective routing problem, called the shortest path with shortest detour problem, in which the length of a route is minimized as one criterion and, as second, the maximal length of a detour route if the chosen route is blocked is minimized. Furthermore, the relation to robust optimization is pointed out, and we present a new polynomial time algorithm, which computes a minimal complete set of efficient paths for the shortest path with shortest detour problem. Moreover, we show that the number of nondominated points is bounded by the number of arcs in the graph.     

Symmetry helps: Bounded bi-directional dynamic programming for the elementary shortest path problem with resource constraints

When vehicle routing problems with additional constraints, such as capacity or time windows, are solved via column generation and branch-and-price, it is common that the pricing subproblem requires the computation of a minimum cost constrained path on a graph with costs on the arcs and prizes on the vertices. A common solution technique for this problem is dynamic programming. In this paper we illustrate how the basic dynamic programming algorithm can be improved by bounded bi-directional search and we experimentally evaluate the effectiveness of the enhancement proposed. We consider as benchmark problems the elementary shortest path problems arising as pricing subproblems in branch-and-price algorithms for the capacitated vehicle routing problem, the vehicle routing problem with distribution and collection and the capacitated vehicle routing problem with time windows.     

The Vehicle Routing-Allocation Problem: A unifying framework

Summary In this paper the Vehicle Routing-Allocation Problem (VRAP) is presented. In VRAP not all customers need be visited by the vehicles. However customers not visited either have to be allocated to some customer on one of the vehicle tours or left isolated. We concentrate our discussion on the Single Vehicle Routing-Allocation Problem (SVRAP). An integer linear programming formulation of SVRAP is presented and we show how SVRAP provides a unifying framework for understanding a number of the papers and problems presented in the literature. Specifically the covering tour problem, the covering salesman problem, the median tour problem, the maximal covering tour problem, the travelling salesman problem, the generalised travelling salesman problem, the selective travelling salesman problem, the prize collecting travelling salesman problem, the maximum covering/shortest path problem, the maximum population/shortest path problem, the shortest covering path problem, the median shortest path problem, the minimum covering/shortest path problem and the hierarchical network design problem are special cases/variants of SVRAP.     

A heuristic approach to hard constrained shortest path problems

Constrained shortest path problems have many applications in areas like network routing, investments planning and project evaluation as well as in some classical combinatorial problems with high duality gaps where even obtaining feasible solutions is a difficult task in general.We present in this paper a systematic method for obtaining good feasible solutions to hard (doubly constrained) shortest path problems. The algorithm is based essentially on the concept of efficient solutions which can be obtained via parametric shortest path calculations. The computational results obtained show that the approach proposed here leads to optimal or very good near optimal solutions for all the problems studied.From a theoretical point of view, the most important contribution of the paper is the statement of a pseudopolynomial algorithm for generating the efficient solutions and, more generally, for solving the parametric shortest path problem.     

A Polynomial Time Approximation Scheme for Optimal Product-Requirement Communication Spanning Trees

Given an undirected graph with nonnegative edge lengths and nonnegative vertex weights, the routing requirement of a pair of vertices is assumed to be the product of their weights. The routing cost for a pair of vertices on a given spanning tree is defined as the length of the path between them multiplied by their routing requirement. The optimal product-requirement communication spanning tree is the spanning tree with minimum total routing cost summed over all pairs of vertices. This problem arises in network design and computational biology. For the special case that all vertex weights are identical, it has been shown that the problem is NP-hard and that there is a polynomial time approximation scheme for it. In this paper we show that the generalized problem also admits a polynomial time approximation scheme.     

Shortest paths in networks with vector weights

For a directed network in which vector weights are assigned to arcs, the Pareto analog to the shortest path problem is analyzed. An algorithm is presented for obtaining all Pareto shortest paths from a specified node to every other node.     

Fleet assignment and routing with schedule synchronization constraints

This paper introduces a new type of constraints, related to schedule synchronization, in the problem formulation of aircraft fleet assignment and routing problems and it proposes an optimal solution approach. This approach is based on Dantzig–Wolfe decomposition/column generation. The resulting master problem consists of flight covering constraints, as in usual applications, and of schedule synchronization constraints. The corresponding subproblem is a shortest path problem with time windows and linear costs on the time variables and it is solved by an optimal dynamic programming algorithm. This column generation procedure is embedded into a branch and bound scheme to obtain integer solutions. A dedicated branching scheme was devised in this paper where the branching decisions are imposed on the time variables. Computational experiments were conducted using weekly fleet routing and scheduling problem data coming from an European airline. The test problems are solved to optimality. A detailed result analysis highlights the advantages of this approach: an extremely short subproblem solution time and, after several improvements, a very efficient master problem solution time.     

Dijkstra’s algorithm and L-concave function maximization

Dijkstra’s algorithm is a well-known algorithm for the single-source shortest path problem in a directed graph with nonnegative edge length. We discuss Dijkstra’s algorithm from the viewpoint of discrete convex analysis, where the concept of discrete convexity called L-convexity plays a central role. We observe first that the dual of the linear programming (LP) formulation of the shortest path problem can be seen as a special case of L-concave function maximization. We then point out that the steepest ascent algorithm for L-concave function maximization, when applied to the LP dual of the shortest path problem and implemented with some auxiliary variables, coincides exactly with Dijkstra’s algorithm.     

An Algorithm for Solving the Shortest Path Improvement Problem on Rooted Trees Under Unit Hamming Distance

Shortest path problems play important roles in computer science, communication networks, and transportation networks. In a shortest path improvement problem under unit Hamming distance, an edge-weighted graph with a set of source–terminal pairs is given. The objective is to modify the weights of the edges at a minimum cost under unit Hamming distance such that the modified distances of the shortest paths between some given sources and terminals are upper bounded by the given values. As the shortest path improvement problem is NP-hard, it is meaningful to analyze the complexity of the shortest path improvement problem defined on rooted trees with one common source. We first present a preprocessing algorithm to normalize the problem. We then present the proofs of some properties of the optimal solutions to the problem. A dynamic programming algorithm is proposed for the problem, and its time complexity is analyzed. A comparison of the computational experiments of the dynamic programming algorithm and MATLAB functions shows that the algorithm is efficient although its worst-case complexity is exponential time.     

Arc routing problems with time-dependent service costs

This paper studies an arc routing problem with capacity constraints and time-dependent service costs. This problem is motivated by winter gritting applications where the “timing” of each intervention is crucial. The exact problem-solving approach reported here first transforms the arc routing problem into an equivalent node routing problem. Then, a column generation scheme is used to solve the latter. The master problem is a classical set covering problem, while the subproblems are time-dependent shortest path problems with resource constraints. These subproblems are solved using an extension of a previously developed algorithm. Computational results are reported on problems derived from a set of classical instances of the vehicle routing problem with time windows.     

满足路径约束的最优路算法

满足路径约束的最优路问题已被证明是NP-hard问题。本针对源点到宿点满足两个QoS(服务质量)度量的路由问题，给出一种保证时延的最小费用路由启发式算法。这个算法的优点是计算较简单、占用内存小、时间短。算法的复杂度是多项式的，表明算法是有效的。     

Optimising Waiting at Nodes in Time-Dependent Networks: Cost Functions and Applications

In this paper, the relationship between waiting at nodes and the path cost in a transport network is analysed. An exact solution algorithm for generating the shortest path with optimal waiting at the nodes is proposed. The general case is examined, considering a time-dependent network (time influences the cost). To develop a full application, the algorithm is applied in the case of a vehicle routing problem on a real network.