Improved utilisation in IP networks using multiple path routing

This paper considers routing in an IP network running a routing protocol such as OSPF It takes as a benchmark a routing scheme. which computes a single lowest cost path between every source/destination pair. It proposes two more schemes which each generate two routes for each source/destination pair. The second scheme uses the present lowest cost route and the previous lowest cost route, different from the present one. The third scheme uses the present lowest cost route and re-computes a route by removing all the links used in the first route and using the Dijkstra algorithm. A number of tests are carried out on simulated networks to determine the throughput and stability of each scheme. It is found that the third scheme produces the best results. followed by the second and then the first. It is also found that the benefit of these schemes is only worthwhile when the number of nodes in the network is low.