Trade-off Analysis of Multi Topology Routing Based IP Fast Reroute Mechanisms

To seamlessly support real-time services such as voice and video over next generation IP networks, routers must continue their forwarding tasks in case of link/node failures by limiting the service disruption time to sub-100 ms. IETF Routing Area Working Group (RTGWG) has been working on standardizing IP Fast Reroute (IPFRR) methods with a complete alternate path coverage. In this paper, a trade-off analysis of Multi Topology Routing (MTR) based IPFRR technologies targeting full coverage, namely Multiple Routing Configurations (MRC) and Maximally Redundant Trees (MRT), are presented. We implemented a comprehensive analysis tool to evaluate the performance of MRC and MRT mechanisms on various synthetic network topologies. The performance results show that MRT's alternative path lengths are not scalable with respect to the network size and density while the alternative path lengths of MRC only slightly change as the network size and density vary. We believe that this is an important scalability result providing a guidance in the selection of MTR-based IPFRR mechanism for improving the availability in ISP networks.