Research on Generalized Intelligent Routing Technology Based on Graph Neural Network
Xiangyu Zheng, Wanwei Huang, Hui Li, Guangyuan Li · Electronics · 2022
Aiming at the problems of poor load balancing ability and weak generalization of the existing routing algorithms, this paper proposes an intelligent routing algorithm, GNN-DRL, in the Software Defined Networking (SDN) environment. The GNN-DRL algorithm uses a graph neural network (GNN) to perceive the dynamically changing network topology, generalizes the state of nodes and edges, and combines the self-learning ability of Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to find the optimal routing strategy, which makes GNN-DRL minimize the maximum link utilization and reduces average end-to-end delay under high network load. In this paper, the GNN-DRL intelligent routing algorithm is compared with the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Equal-Cost Multi-Path (ECMP), and intelligence-driven experiential network architecture for automatic routing (EARS). The experimental results show that GNN-DRL reduces the maximum link utilization by 13.92% and end-to-end delay by 9.48% compared with the superior intelligent routing algorithm EARS under high traffic load, and can be effectively extended to different network topologies, making possible better load balancing capability and generalizability.