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In this paper, a network laboratory for distance learning of basic concepts in IP networking is presented. Through a web interface, students can choose various configurations of a real private network (number of routers and subnetworks, use of IPv4/IPv6, etc.), and learn about them using Linux network commands. The utilization of the virtual laboratory and how it is implemented are described.

Following the iterative research cycle process, this chapter elaborates a methodology and documents the steps followed for the design of a dynamic multicast routing algorithm, referred to as Greedy Compact Multicast Routing. Starting from the design of the dynamic multicast routing algorithm, we then evaluate by simulation on large-scale topologies its performance and compare them with the Abraham compact multicast routing scheme and two other reference schemes, namely the Shortest Path Tree (SPT) and the Steiner Tree (ST) algorithm. Performance evaluation and comparison include i) the stretch of the multicast routing paths also referred to as multicast distribution tree (MDT), ii) the memory space required to store the resulting routing table entries, and iii) the total communication or messaging cost, i.e., the number of messages exchanged to build the MDT. However, such performance evaluation is a necessary but not a sufficient condition to meet in order to expect deployment of multicast routing. Indeed, if one can determine that traffic exchanges are spatially and temporally concentrated, this would provide elements indicating the relevance for the introduction of such scheme in the Internet. Otherwise (if traffic exchanges are spatially and temporally diverse, i.e., highly distributed), then very few of them would benefit from a (shared) point-to-multipoint routing paths and multicast routing scheme would be less useful. For this purpose, we have conducted a multicast tree inference study. In turn, data and results obtained from these studies provides more realistic scenarios for emulation experiments against the currently deployed approach combining MBGP and PIMdeployed in IPTV or mVPN context.

In this paper a novel methodology aimed at minimizing the probability of network failure and the failure impact (in terms of QoS degradation) while optimizing the resource consumption is introduced. A detailed study of MPLS recovery techniques and their GMPLS extensions are also presented. In this scenario, some features for reducing the failure impact and offering minimum failure probabilities at the same time are also analyzed. Novel two-step routing algorithms using this methodology are proposed. Results show that these methods offer high protection levels with optimal resource consumption.

Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees must be supported in a network that intends to carry real-time and multimedia traffic effectively. The effort of satisfying the QoS different requirements of these applications has resulted in the proposals of several QoS-based frameworks, such as Integrated Services (IntServ) [1], Differentiated Services (DiffServ) [2], and Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) [6].

We present a system for dynamic network resource configuration in environments with bandwidth reservation. The proposed system is completely distributed and automates the mechanisms for adapting the logical network to the offered load. The system is able to manage dynamically a logical network such as a virtual path network in ATM or a label switched path network in MPLS or GMPLS. The system design and implementation is based on a multi-agent system (MAS) which make the decisions of when and how to change a logical path. Despite the lack of a centralised global network view, results show that MAS manages the network resources effectively, reducing the connection blocking probability and, therefore, achieving better utilisation of network resources. We also include details of its architecture and implementation.

This paper proposes a traffic engineering scheme using different distribution trees to several multicast flows. We formulate this problem as one with Non Linear programming with discontinuous derivatives (DNLP). The aim is to combine into a single aggregated metric the following weighting objectives: the maximum link utilization, the hop count, the total bandwidth consumption and the total end-to-end delay. Our proposal solves the traffic split ratio for multiple trees. The proposed approach is applied in MPLS networks by allowing the establishment of explicit routes in multicast events. Furthermore, the results obtained with GAMS tools show that several objectives are decreased; the maximum link utilization is minimized. The main contribution of this paper is the optimization model and the formulation of the multi-objective function.