CAPEX and availability tradeoffs of homing architectures in multi-layer networks

A generic multi-layer model and a linear programming (LP) formulation are developed enabling the calculation of the optimal solution in terms of network equipment capital expenditures (CAPEX) in multi-homing design. Alternative homing architectures to traditional dual homing are studied not only with respect to network equipment costs but also regarding the achieved availability gain. Case study results show that significant CAPEX savings can be obtained by deploying a shared router strategy, which are independent from the traffic demand and deployed equipment.