Optimization of the Self-Protecting Multipath for Deployment in Legacy Networks

The self-protecting multipath (SPM) is a simple protection switching mechanism that can be implemented, e.g., by MPLS. We present a linear program for the optimization of the SPM load balancing parameters to maximize the amount of transportable traffic with resilience requirements. This is needed to configure the SPM for the deployment in legacy networks. Our study shows that the SPM is very efficient in the sense that it can carry 50% - 200% more protected traffic than IP rerouting in sufficiently meshed networks. The investigation of the computation time and the memory consumption recommends the COIN LP (CLP) as preferred LP solver. The computation time of the program depends mainly on the number of links in the network and networks with up to 240 links can be optimized within one hour on a standard PC.