Distributed multipath routing with packet allocation based on the attractor renewal model

Abstract

Information communication networks are rapidly growing recently. Because of increase of communication overhead, traditional routing protocols using global information of the network, such as topology of the whole network or traffic demands between most of pairs of routers, are facing difficulty in reliable routing. To alleviate this, distributed routing protocols relying only on local observables of the network attract much attention recently. The nonrequirement of global knowledge of the whole network largely reduces communication overhead of these protocols. However, the lack of knowledge can also be a significant drawback of them because they cannot promptly respond to traffic changes that occur on out of their local scopes. It means that network resources cannot be utilized sufficiently. To solve the problem, here, by extending an existing distributed routing protocol called ARAS, we propose a novel routing protocol that utilizes multiple paths in parallel. The protocol adaptively modulates packet allocation ratio to paths based only on local observables of the network. Multipath routing, however, easily give flapping of packet allocation due to competition among multiple routers. We study competition between routers and provide ways to suppress the flapping. We show validity of the proposal using a network simulation where prompt response of packet reallocation is required.