ABSTRACT Cost-effective planning and dimensioning of backhaul microwave networks under unreliable channel conditions remains a relatively underexplored area in the literature. In particular, bandwidth assignment requires special attention as the transport capacity of microwave links is prone to variations due to, e.g., weather conditions. In this paper, we formulate an optimization model that determines the minimum cost bandwidth assignment of the links in the network for which traffic requirements can be fulfilled with high probability. This model also aims to increase network reliability by adjusting dynamically traffic routes in response to variations of link capacities induced by channel conditions. Experimental results show that 45% of the bandwidth cost can be saved compared to the case where a bandwidth over-provisioning policy is uniformly applied to all links in the network planning. Comparisons with previous work also show that our solution approach, based on column generation technique, is able to solve much larger instances in significantly shorter computing times (i.e., few minutes for medium-size networks, and up to 2 hours for very large networks, unsolved so far by previous models/algorithms), with a comparable level of reliability.

Embora as vantagens dos p-ciclos e FIPP p-ciclos estejam bem estabelecidas, não existe uma análise sistemática de quanta largura de banda eles consomem em comparação aos mecanismos clássicos de proteção compartilhada por caminhos e por links. Foi observado recentemente que a enumeração de um enorme número de ciclos não é necessariamente uma garantia de se obter soluções de boa qualidade se ferramentas para programação de larga escala não forem usadas. Nós propomos investigar os custos de proteção de largura de banda dos p-ciclos e FIPP p-ciclos em comparação com aqueles de proteção compartilhada por links e por caminhos, através da aplicação da técnica de geração de colunas para resolver modelos relaxados para os quatro esquemas de proteção. Em seguida, resolvemos os modelos de programação inteira resultantes. Soluções próximas da otimalidade nos permitem desempenhar comparações quantitativas exatas em redes reais.

While the advantages of p-cycles and FIPP p-cycles are well established, there has been no systematic analysis of how much bandwidth they consume in comparison with the classical shared link and path protection schemes. It was recently observed that, even enumerating a huge number of cycles, is not necessarily a guarantee for obtaining good quality solutions with the ILP models if tools for large scale programming are not used. We propose to investigate the bandwidth protection costs of p-cycles and FIPP p-cycles in comparison with those of shared link and path protection by applying the column generation technique to solve relaxed LP models for the four protection schemes, and then solving the resulting ILP models. Provably near-optimal solutions allow us to perform accurate quantitative comparisons on real-world networks.