Multi-hour design of computer backbone networks

Abstract

This paper addresses the problem of designing wide area computer backbone networks that span many time zones. The problem of designing wide area computer backbone networks is commonly referred to as the Capacity and Flow Assignment (CFA) problem. The CFA problem involves the routing of messages and the assignment of communication line capacities at minimum cost subject to performance constraints. In this paper, a version of the CFA problem is addressed in which the assignment of communication line capacities is based on multi-hour traffic requirements. Multi-hour traffic requirements are used since networks that span many time zones have changing traffic patterns that exhibit non-coincidence of traffic over the hours of the day. Thus, low cost network designs can be obtained by exploiting this non-coincidence. A heuristic procedure is presented that takes advantage of this non-coincidence to provide low cost solutions. This heuristic procedure is applied to a variety of test problems and the solutions obtained are compared with lower bound solutions computed using a branch- and-bound procedure.