Solving the multicommodity flow problem using an evolutionary routing algorithm in a computer network environment

Abstract

The continued increase in Internet traffic requires that routing algorithms make the best use of all available network resources. Most of the current deployed networks are not doing so due to their use of single path routing algorithms. In this work we propose the use of a multipath capable routing algorithm using Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) that take into account all the traffic going over the network and the link capacities by leveraging the information available at the Software Defined Network (SDN) controller. The designed routing algorithm uses Per-Packet multipath routing to make the best use of the network’s resources. Per-Packet multipath is known to have adverse affects when used with TCP, so we propose modifications to the Multipath TCP (MPTCP) protocol to overcome this. Network simulations are performed on a real world network model with 41 nodes and 60 bidirectional links. Results for the EA routing solution with the modified MPTCP protocol show a 29% increase in the total network Goodput, and a more than 50% average reduction in a flow’s end-to-end delay, when compared to OSPF and standard TCP under the same network topology and flow request conditions.