Some Notes and Results on Bandwidth-based Routing and Implicit Load Balancing

The Maximum Bandwidth Path Algorithm (MBPA) is introduced as an alternative to Dijkstra’s Shortest Path Algorithm (DSPA) for Internet routing. The two are compared and differences noted. Of particular interest is the extent to which each algorithm achieves Implicit Load Balancing (ILB) – the principle of effective link usage for traffic across the network as a whole for non-equal paths and without the use of explicit routing variance. Although MBPA may prove to be more efficient than DSPA generally (further work is required), it is shown, through extensive simulation, that it produces better levels of ILB for real, as opposed to artificial, network scenarios.