Topological design of interconnected LAN/MAN networks

The authors describe a methodology for designing interconnected LAN/MAN networks with the objective of minimizing the average network delay. They consider IEEE 802 standard LANs interconnected by transparent bridges. These bridges are required to form a spanning tree topology. The authors propose a simulated annealing-based algorithm for designing minimum delay spanning tree topologies. In order to measure the quality of the solutions, a lower bound for the average network delay is found. The algorithm is extended to design the overall LAN/MAN topology consisting of a MAN or high-speed data service interconnecting several clusters of bridged LANs. Comparison with the lower bound and several other measures show that the solutions are not very far from the global minimum