Multi-path OSPF performance of a software router in a link failure scenario

Abstract

In this paper we analyze intra-domain routing protocols improvements to support new features required by real time services. In particular we introduce OSPF Fast Convergence and highlights the advantage of using an incremental algorithm instead of Djikstra one to compute the shortest paths. Then we propose a new multi-path incremental algorithm that we have implemented in OSPF code of Quagga open-source routing software. Analyzing an index characterizing OSPF performance we compare our algorithm with an incremental algorithm not supporting multi-path and demonstrate that, even if multi-path support, the reconfiguration times are really similar; moreover,in some cases, our algorithm performs better, especially in a link failure scenario.