Path diversification: A multipath resilience mechanism

Abstract

We present Path Diversification, a new mechanism that can be used to select multiple paths between a given ingress and egress node pair using a quantified diversity measure to achieve maximum flow reliability. The path diversification mechanism is targeted at the end-to-end layer, but can be applied at any level for which a path discovery service is available, e.g. intra-realm routing or inter-realm routing. Path diversification also takes into account higher level requirements for low-latency or maximal reliability in selecting appropriate paths. Using this mechanism will allow future internetworking architectures to exploit naturally rich physical topologies to a far greater extent than is possible with shortest-path routing or equal-cost load balancing. In this paper we describe the path diversity metric and its application at various aggregation levels. We then apply this metric to the path diversification process in the context of several real-world network graphs to asses the gain in flow reliability.