An object-oriented approach to data routing in a network

Abstract

In this paper, a suitable generalized object-oriented formulation is devised, which can be used to find the shortest paths between machines for all types of networks. Use of object-oriented programming paradigm allows the analyzer to add greater flexibilities to the programs by modeling them as entities (called Objects) that have certain common properties (which are defined by the Class that they belong to). Non-object oriented implementations make use of certain data structures which represent the parameters of a network (and thus its state at any point of time). But in object oriented implementation, the classes are modeled taking into account the physical parameters of a network. Hence, it is not difficult to grasp the data structures used. Moreover, Copyright c 200x Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. 2 P. Chatterjee and S. Chakraborty due to the use of object oriented methodologies, it is easier to visualize the operations in the algorithm. The same algorithm can be run without any modification, even if network characteristics and topology change. Addition or subtraction of routers and links can be achieved by simple addition and subtraction of Nodes and Edges. Additionally, for this algorithm the weighting function just needs to be changed to incorporate the requisite changes for different types of subnets. Finally, the algorithm is aptly illustrated by means of two representative case studies.