BANANAS: A Connectionless Framework for Explicit, Multipath Routing in the Internet∗

This paper presents BANANAS, a connectionless framework for enabling explicit, multipath routing in the Internet. BANANAS uses the idea of a globally known path identifier, known as PathID to achieve source 1 specified, explicit, multipath routing in a partially upgraded network. We show that BANANAS allows introduction of sophisticated explicit and multipath routing capabilities in the context of connectionless routing protocols (e.g. OSPF, IS-IS, BGP etc.). BANANAS provides various alternatives for managing space, speed and computational complexity. The BANANAS framework has been implemented in SSFNet simulator and Linux kernel using Click Router for the forwarding plane and Zebra for the control plane. Results from complexity analysis, SSFNet simulations and Linux/Zebra implementation at Utah’s Emulab testbed have been used to evaluate and illustrate the BANANAS framework.