An Automated Topological Analysis of Multiple Routing Configurations

Topological changes in IP networks may significantly influence the performance of networking algorithms, which therefore should be carefully evaluated using a large topology pool with diverse characteristics. In this paper, we present an automated topology generation and analysis tool to perform an elaborate topological dependency analysis of a Multi Topology Routing based IP Fast Re-Route technology, namely Multiple Routing Configurations. Our tool is used to generate 11; 500 topologies with diverse properties by selectively varying the parameters of the existing topology generation models. Through its extensive topological diversity and in-depth analysis capabilities, we discover a significant correlation, such that MRC requires higher number of virtual topologies to provide full alternate path coverage if a network tends to have a higher number of hub nodes. The discovery of such a correlation demonstrates the effectiveness of our tool in evaluating the performance of networking algorithms. Inspired by this correlation, we propose an extension to MRC reducing its operational complexity.