Autonomous routing algorithms for networks with wide-spread failures

Abstract

We study end-to-end delay performance of different routing algorithms in networks with random failures. Specifically, we compare delay performances of differential backlog (DB) and shortest path (SP) routing algorithms and show that DB routing outperforms SP routing in terms of throughput when the network is heavily loaded and/or the failure rate is high while SP routing achieves better delay performance in the low load regime. Then, we investigate delay performance of a hybrid routing algorithm that combines principles of both SP and DB routing algorithms and show that it outperforms both of these routing algorithms. Finally, we demonstrate improvements in delay performance of DB routing through the use of a digital fountain approach which was originally proposed for multicast applications. In addition, our results show that there exists an optimal coding rate where digital fountain based DB routing achieves minimum end-to-end delay. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work which investigates delay performance of DB routing and its enhanced versions for networks with link failures.