Abstract

In a dynamic network environment under heavy traffic load, shortest-path routing algorithms, particularly those that attempt to adapt to traffic changes, frequently exhibit oscillatory behaviors and cause performance degradation. In this paper we first examine the problems from the perspective of control theory and decision making, and then analyze the behaviors of the shortest-path routing algorithms in details. 1. INTRODUCTION Shortest-path routing algorithms have been widely used in today's computer networks. In such algorithms, each node attempts to route packets to their destinations over paths of minimum distance and updates the distances periodically to adapt topological and traffic changes. There are two main classes of algorithms: distance-vector algorithm and link-state algorithm. In a distance-vector algorithm, each node maintains a routing table containing the distance of the shortest path to every destination in the network. A node only informs its immediate neighbors of...

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