Routing Algorithms

Suggested Reading:
Bertsekas and Gallager: 5.1 (5.1.1, 5.1.2), 5.2.3 (on Bellman-Ford and
Dijkstra’s)
Kurose and Rose (2001 Edition): 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4
Also http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs224a: routing protocol
 Outline

™ Flooding
™ Distributed Bellman Ford Algorithm
™ Dijkstra’s Shortest Path First Algorithm
 Problem

Given a topology, link costs, and a source-destination (SD) pair,

determine a route from S to D so that the route has the minimum
cost (i.e., is the shortest).
 Example network
The shortest route A to B:
R1, R2, R5, R8
A

1 1 4
R1 R2 R4 R6
2 2 3
2
R7 3
R5 2
R3 4 B
R8
 Routing Metrics

™ Metrics
¾ Link state: up or down (stability)
¾ Delay to send an average size packet (Make high speed links
attractive, but closeness counts)
¾ Bandwidth
¾ Link utilization

For simplicity, our examples assume that the cost for the path is
additive.
 Example network
In this simple case, solution is clear from inspection

1 1 4
R1 R2 R4 R6
2 2 3
2
R7 3
R5 2
R3 4 B
R8
 Flooding
Routers forward packets to all ports
except the ingress port.

R1

Advantages:
™ Simple.
™ Every destination in the network is reachable.
Disadvantages:
™ Some routers receive a packet multiple times.
™ Packets can go round in loops forever.
™ Inefficient.
 Spanning Trees
Find the lowest cost route from each of
(R1, …, R7) to R8 (the same as from R8 to the rest for this case)

1 1 4
R1 R2 R4 R6
2 2 3
2
R7 3
R5 2
R3 4
R8
 A Spanning Tree
1 1 4
R1 R2 R4 R6
3
2 2
2
2
R7 3
R5
4
R3 R8

™ The solution is a spanning tree with R8 as the source of the tree.

™ Tree: There are no loops.
™ Spanning: All nodes included.
™ Will see two algorithms that build spanning trees automatically:
™ The distributed Bellman-Ford algorithm
™ Dijkstra’s shortest path first algorithm
 Bellman Ford Algorithm*
™ Finds the shortest paths, from a given source node, say node 8, to all other
nodes (i is the index for destinations).
General idea:

–First find the shortest single arc path,

–Then the shortest path of at most two arcs, etc.
–Let dij be the cost between node i to j; and dij=∞ if (i,j) is not directly linked

Let Di(h) be the shortest distance from 8 to i using at most h hops/arcs. (h

can be regarded as time also.)

–Di(1) = d8i for i≠8, D8(h) = 0 for all h.

–Di(h+1) = min {j} [Dj(h) +dji] for i≠8.

If all weights are positive, algorithm terminates in N-1 steps, where N is the
no. of nodes in the network.

*Notations are similar to those used in Bertsekas and Gallager.

 Bellman-Ford Algorithm
Example
∞ ∞ ∞ ∞
1 1 4
R1 R2 R4 R6
2 2
∞
3
∞ 2
3
∞ R5 2 R7
R3 4
R8

∞ ∞ ∞ 4 2
1 1
R1 R2 R4 R6
3
2 2
2 3
2 R7
2 3
4 R5
4 R8
R3
Bellman-Ford Algorithm
6 4 6 2
1 1 4
R1 R2 R4 R6
3
2 3
2 2 2
4 2 R7 3
R5
4
R3 R8
Solution
5 4 5 2
R1 1 R2 1 R4 R6
2 3
2 2
4 R7 3
R5 2
R3 4 R8
Routing Table for R8
Destination Next Hop

R1 R5
R2 R5
R3 R3
R4 R5
R5 R5
R6 R6
R7 R7
 Distributed Bellman-Ford
Let N(i) be a set of neighbors of node i:

Di(h+1) = min {j in N(i)} [Dj(h) +dji] for i≠8; D8(h+1) = 0

Only need to keep/eachange distance information from/with neighbors.

 Bellman-Ford Algorithm

Questions:
1. How long can the algorithm take to run?
2. How do we know that the algorithm always
converges?
3. What happens when link costs change, or when
routers/links fail?
 A Problem with Bellman-Ford
“Bad news travels slowly”
1 1 1
R1 R2 R3 R4

Consider the calculation of distances from/to R4:

Time R1 R2 R3
0 3,R2 2,R3 1, R4 R3 R4 fails
1 3,R2 2,R3 3,R2
2 3,R2 4,R3 3,R2 d34=inf.
3 5,R2 4,R3 5,R2
… “Counting
… to
…infinity” …
 Counting to Infinity Problem
Solutions

1. Set infinity = “some small integer” (e.g. 16). Stop

when count = 16.
2. Split Horizon: Because R2 received lowest cost path
from R3, it does not advertise cost to R3
3. There are many problems with (and fixes for) the
Bellman-Ford algorithm.
 Dijkstra’s Shortest Path First Algorithm

™ Routers send out update messages whenever the state of a

link changes. Hence the name: “Link State” algorithm.
™ Each router calculates lowest cost path to all others, starting
from itself.
™ At each step of the algorithm, router adds the next shortest
(i.e. lowest-cost) path to the tree.
™ Finds spanning tree routed on source router.
 Dijkstra’s Shortest Path First Algorithm
Example

Step 1: Shortest path set, S = {R8}. Candidate set, C = {R3 , R5 , R7 , R6 }

Step 2: S = {R8 , R5},
R5
C = {R3 , R7 , R6 , R2 }. R8

R6
Step 3: S = {R8 , R5 , R6},
R5
C = {R3 , R7 , R2 , R4 }. R8

Step 4: S = {R8 , R5 , R6 , R7 }, R6

C = {R3 , R2 , R4}. R7
R5
R8
 Dijkstra’s SPF Algorithm
Step 8 : S = {R8 , R5 , R6 , R7 , R2 , R1 , R4 },
C = {}.

1 1
R1 R2 R4 R6

2
R7 3
R5 2
4 R8
R3