We present a new distributed routing protocol for mobile, multihop, wireless networks. The protocol is one of a family of protocols which we term "link reversal" algorithms. The protocol's reaction is structured as a temporally-ordered sequence of diffusing computations; each computation consisting of a sequence of directed l i nk reversals. The protocol is highly adaptive, efficient and scalable; being best-suited for use in large, dense, mobile networks. In these networks, the protocol's reaction to link failures typically involves only a localized "single pass" of the distributed algorithm. This capability is unique among protocols which are stable in the face of network partitions, and results in the protocol's high degree of adaptivity. This desirable behavior is achieved through the novel use of a "physical or logical clock" to establish the "temporal order" of topological change events which is used to structure (or order) the algorithm's reaction to topological changes. We refer to the protocol as the Temporally-Ordered Routing Algorithm (TORA).

Networked sensors-those that coordinate amongst them-selves to achieve a larger sensing task-will revolutionize information gathering and processing both in urban envi-ronments and in inhospitable terrain. The sheer numbers of these sensors and the expected dynamics in these environ-ments present unique challenges in the design of unattended autonomous sensor networks. These challenges lead us to hypothesize that sensor network coordination applications may need to be structured differently from traditional net-work applications. In particular, we believe that localized algorithms (in which simple local node behavior achieves a desired global objective) may be necessary for sensor net-work coordination. In this paper, we describe localized al-gorithms, and then discuss directed diffusion, a simple com-munication model for describing localized algorithms. 1

We present

Abstract—This paper examines the latency in Internet path failure, failover, and repair due to the convergence properties of interdomain routing. Unlike circuit-switched paths which exhibit failover on the order of milliseconds, our experimental measurements show that interdomain routers in the packet-switched Internet may take tens of minutes to reach a consistent view of the network topology after a fault. These delays stem from temporary routing table fluctuations formed during the operation of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) path selection process on Internet backbone routers. During these periods of delayed convergence,we show that end-to-end Internet paths will experience intermittent loss of connectivity, as well as increased packet loss and latency. We present a two-year study of Internet routing convergence through the experimental instrumentation of key portions of the Internet infrastructure, including both passive data collection and fault-injection machines at major Internet exchange points. Based on data from the injection and measurement of several hundred thousand interdomain routing faults, we describe several unexpected properties of convergence and show that the measured upper bound on Internet interdomain routing convergence delay is an order of magnitude slower than previously thought. Our analysis also shows that the upper theoretic computational bound on the number of router states and control messages exchanged during the process of BGP convergence is factorial with respect to the number of autonomous systems in the Internet. Finally, we demonstrate that much of the observed convergence delay stems from specific router vendor implementation decisions and ambiguity in the BGP specification. Index Terms—Failure analysis, Internet, network reliability, routing.

In this paper, we study the performance of route query control mechanisms for the Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP) for ad hoc networks. ZRP proactively maintains routing information for a local neighborhood (routing zone), while reactively acquiring routes to destinations beyond the routing zone. This hybrid routing approach can be more efficient than traditional routing schemes. However, without proper query control techniques, the ZRP cannot provide the expected reduction in the control traffic.

this paper, we impose a virtual backbone structure on the ad-hoc network, in order to support unicast, multicast, and fault-tolerant routing within the ad-hoc network. This virtual backbone differs from the wired backbone of cellular networks in two key ways: (a) it may change as nodes move, and (b) it is not used primarily for routing packets or flows, but only for computing and updating routes. The primary routes for packets and flows are still computed by a shortest-paths computation; the virtual backbone can, if necessary, provide backup routes to handle interim failures. Because of the dynamic nature of the virtual backbone, our approach splits the routing problem into two levels: (a) find and update the virtual backbone, and (b) then find and update routes. The key contribution of this paper is to describe several alternatives for the first part of finding and updating the virtual backbone. In this paper, to keep the virtual backbone as small as possible, we use an approximation to the minimum connected dominating set (MCDS) of the ad-hoc network topology as the virtual backbone. The hosts in the MCDS maintain local copies of the global topology of the network, along with shortest paths between all pairs of nodes. We note that the concept of a virtual backbone is not new. Ephremides et al.

Although recent advances in the IETF's Differentiated Services workinggroup promise to improve the performance of application-level services within some networks, across the wide-area Internet these QoS algorithms are usuallypredicated on the existence of a stable underlying forwarding infrastructure. In recent work, we showed that the Internet lacks effective inter-domain pathfail-over [1]. Specifically, we found that multi-homed Internet sites may experience periods of degraded performance as well as complete loss of connectivitypersisting fifteen minutes or more after a single fault.

Prompted by the advent of QoS routing in the Internet, we investigate the properties that path weight functions must have so that hop-by-hop routing is possible and optimal paths can be computed with a generalized Dijsktra's algorithm. For this purpose we define an algebra of weights which contains a binary operation, for the composition of link weights into path weights, and an order relation. Isotonicity is the key property of the algebra. It states that the order relation between the weights of any two paths is preserved if both of them are either prefixed or appended by a common, third, path. We show that isotonicity is both necessary and sufficient for a generalized Dijkstra's algorithm to yield optimal paths. Likewise, isotonicity is also both necessary and sufficient for hop-by-hop routing. However, without strict isotonicity, hop-by-hop routing based on optimal paths may produce routing loops. They are prevented if every node computes what we call lexicographic-optimal paths. These paths can be computed with an enhanced Dijkstra's algorithm that has the same complexity as the standard one. Our findings are extended to multipath routing as well. As special cases of the general approach, we conclude that shortestwidest paths can neither be computed with a generalized Dijkstra's algorithm nor can packets be routed hop-by-hop over those paths. In addition, loop-free hop-by-hop routing over widest and widest-shortest paths requires that each node computes lexicographic-optimal paths, in general.

The conventional approach to routing in computer networks consists of using a heuristic to compute a single shortest path from a source to a destination. Single-path routing is very responsive to topological and link-cost changes; however, except under light traffic loads, the delays obtained with this type of routing are far from optimal. Furthermore, if link costs are associated with delays, single-path routing exhibits oscillatory behavior and becomes unstable as traffic loads increase. On the other hand, minimumdelay routing approaches can minimize delays only when traffic is stationary or very slowly changing. We present a "near-optimal" routing framework that offers delays comparable to those of optimal routing and that is as flexible and responsive as single-path routing protocols proposed to date. First, an approximation to the Gallager's minimum-delay routing problem is derived, and then algorithms that implement the approximation scheme are presented and verified. We introdu...

We present a new distance-vector routing protocol for a packet radio network. The new distributed routing protocol, WRP, works on the notion of second-to-last hop node to a destination. WRP reduces the number of cases in which a temporary routing loop can occur and also provides a mechanism for the reliable transmission of update messages. The performance of WRP has been compared quantitatively by simulations with that of distributed Bellman-Ford (DBF), DUAL (a loopfree distance-vector algorithm) and an ideal link-state algorithm (ILS) which represents the state of the art of Internet routing, in a highly dynamic environment. The simulation results indicate that WRP is the most efficient of the algorithms simulated in a wireless environment. 1 Introduction With the recent proliferation of laptop and portable computers, and the development of wireless network interfaces, host mobility is becoming an important issue. An efficient routing protocol is necessary to communicate directly wi...