Decentralized packet clustering in router-based networks

Different types of decentralized clustering problems have been studied so far for networks and multi-agent systems. In this paper we introduce a new type of a decentralized clustering problem for networks. The so called Decentralized Packet Clustering (DPC) problem is to find for packets that are sent around in a network a clustering. This clustering has to be done by the routers using only few computational power and only a small amount of memory. No direct information transfer between the routers is allowed. We investigate the behavior of new a type of decentralized k-means algorithm — called DPClust — for solving the DPC problem. DPClust has some similarities with ant based clustering algorithms. We investigate the behavior of DPClust for different clustering problems and for networks that consist of several subnetworks. The amount of packet exchange between these subnetworks is limited. Networks with different connection topologies for the subnetworks are considered. A dynamic situation where the packet exchange rates between the subnetworks varies over time is also investigated. The proposed DPC problem leads to interesting research problems for network clustering.