On the interplay of network structure and routing strategies in scale-free networks

• Published in: Annales des télécommunications Vol. 66; no. 1-2; pp. 17 - 29
• Main Authors: Ghamry, Walid K., Elsayed, Khaled M. F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Paris Springer-Verlag 01.02.2011
• Subjects: Circuits; Communications Engineering; Computer Communication Networks; Engineering; Information and Communication; Information Systems and Communication Service; Networks; R & D/Technology Policy; Signal,Image and Speech Processing; Network structure; Network throughput; Routing strategies
• ISSN: 0003-4347; 1958-9395
• DOI: 10.1007/s12243-010-0223-x

In this paper, we examine how the structural characteristics of network topologies affect the network performance, and we examine the interplay between structural characteristics of network topologies and routing strategies. We consider routing strategies subject to practical constraints (router technology) and economic considerations (link costs) at layer 3. We propose two new routing methods suitable for implementation in large networks and examine various routing strategies (local, global, and hybrid) with tunable parameters and explore how they can enhance the network performance. We find that there exists an optimal range of values for the tunable parameters to achieve high network performance which depends on the structural properties of the network topology. We also show that our proposed routing scheme, which requires minimum local information, achieves high network performance.