PLR-based heuristic for backup path computation in MPLS networks

To ensure service continuity in networks, local protection pre-configuring the backup paths is preferred to global protection. Under the practical hypothesis of single physical failures in the network, the backup paths which protect against different logical failure risks (node, link and shared risk link group (SRLG)) cannot be active at the same time. Thus, sharing bandwidth between such backup paths is crucial to increase the bandwidth availability. In this article, we focus on the optimal on-line distributed computation of the bandwidth-guaranteed backup paths in MPLS networks. As the requests for connection establishment and release arrive dynamically without knowledge of future arrivals, we choose to use the on-line mode to avoid LSP reconfigurations. We also selected a distributed computation to offer scalability and decrease the LSP setup time. Finally, the optimization of bandwidth utilization can be achieved thanks to the flexibility of the path choice offered by MPLS and to the bandwidth sharing. For a good bandwidth sharing, the backup path computation entities (BPCEs) require the knowledge and maintenance of a great quantity of bandwidth information (e.g. non aggregated link information or per path information) which is undesirable in distributed environments. To get around this problem, we propose here a PLR (point of local repair)based heuristic (PLRH) which aggregates and noticeably decreases the size of the bandwidth information advertised in the network while offering a high bandwidth sharing. PLRH permits an efficient computation of backup paths. It is scalable, easy to be deployed and balances equitably computations on the network nodes. Simulations show that with the transmission of a small quantity of aggregated information per link, the ratio of rejected backup paths is low and close to the optimum. 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.