Multipath policy routing in packet switched networks

Dissertação apresentada para obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores, pela Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências e TecnologiaNowadays, the continuous operations of large networks, under multiple ownerships, are of tremendous importance and as a result, routing protocols have gained numerous extensions and accumulated complexity. Policy-based routing can be of signi cance for common networks when the cost of transporting a bit is no longer the biggest pressure point. The best path problem is a generalization of the shortest path problem that suits policy based routing. This means that preferences for the paths depend on semantically rich characteristics, in which two di erent paths may have the same preference. However, current policy-based routing models cannot take full advantage of the multiplicity of connections to a given destination and are single path in nature. Therefore multipath can bring several advantages in policy based routing. Designing multipath routing protocols based on policies seem to be a problem of interest. To model routing problems, algebraic structures and graph theory are used. Through variants of classical methods of linear algebra routing problems can be solved. The objective of this dissertation is to devise a multipath policy-based routing protocol using a simple destination-based hop-by-hop protocol with independent forwarding decisions. Networks featuring these characteristics can be more resilient to failures, provide better tra c distribution and maintain a simple forwarding paradigm. The dissertation concludes with the trade-o 's between the exibility of the proposed solution, the amount of multiple paths that can be used simultaneously and the network restrictions that must be applied