Control and management of large and dynamic networks
Wei‐Tek Tsai · 1986
Dynamic networks are computer networks whose links and nodes could fail and recover frequently. The nodes may also be mobile. Large dynamic networks are dynamic networks of large size and they are clustered as hierarchical networks. The objective of this research task is to design a mechanism to support nodes to communicate with each other. To communicate with each other, the nodes would first have to know the names of other nodes, then their addresses, and finally the routes. Thus, the network should provide two mechanisms to supports the communications: binding of names of nodes with their addresses, and binding of address of nodes to the routes dynamically. The first problem, i.e. bind the names of nodes with their addresses, is usually called the naming or addressing problem. The second problem, i.e. binding the addresses with the corresponding routes, is conventionally called the routing problem. In this dissertation, we will discuss techniques to handle both problems. We first discuss techniques for the routing problem. As the network is assumed to be very large and dynamic, we concentrate our effort in developing hierarchical routing algorithms. A new adaptive hierarchical routing algorithm is proposed. The algorithm is based on the extension of the new Arpanet algorithm. The algorithm is good for both updating and initialization the routing tables. Based on the data structure stored at each node, we proposed a classification of adaptive hierarchical routing algorithms. We further evaluate all the adaptive hierarchical routing algorithms based on the proposed classification. We then proposed techniques to dynamically bind the names of nodes with their addresses. It is expected the techniques proposed in this dissertation would be very useful to assists nodes in large and dynamic computer networks to communicate reliably. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)