Genetic algorithms for capacity planning of IP-based networks

Network capacity planning aims to determine an cost-effective resource needed to carry current and projected volumes of traffic. Determining where and when to add bandwidth or expand routing or switching capacity are the most fundamental capacity planning decisions. This capacity planning is a hard, large scale combinatorial problem in which the number of options to be analyzed increases exponentially with the size of the network and with the amount of traffic demands. This paper describes this problem and proposes the genetic algorithms as a efficient solution. Computational test with different IP-based backbones ware carried out with insightful results