New algorithm for virtual path network design in ATM networks

Virtual paths (VPs) in an ATM network form a logical network, called VP network (VPN), over the underlying physical network. VPN allows flexible management of network resources and hence its design is an important issue in designing an ATM network. In this paper, we consider the VPN design problem which is formulated as an optimization problem with the objective of minimizing the switching and transmission cost, and control and management cost. We present here, a two-phase heuristic solution for designing a good VPN for a given traffic demand. The first phase is a routing phase in which a route is found between every node pair in the network. In the second phase, paths are selected as VPs using the set of routes generated in the routing phase. A path is selected as a VP so as to minimize the following parameters: (i) the total number of VPs configured; (ii) the number of VPs carried by a link (load); and (iii) the VP hopcount, the number of VPs that are concatenated to form a virtual channel (VC). We study the performance of the proposed algorithm through extensive simulation on various networks. The results show that the VPN generated by the proposed algorithm is good in minimizing the number of VPs configured, the load on a link, and the VP hopcount. The comparison of the results obtained by the proposed algorithm and that of Ahn et al. shows that our algorithm performs better.