Topology Identification Algorithm For Network Management

Emerging networks such as multihop radio networks or reconfigurable lightwave networks have a dynamically changing topology as part of their normal operation. In such networks, a precise and timely knowledge of the topology becomes critical for network management and control. The authors address the problem of identifying the topology of a network from possibly incorrect and/or incomplete data collected at a designated node (possibly one of the network nodes). They propose a model that describes and relates the network topology and the data, define costs associated with this model, and reduce the identification problem to a combinationorial optimization problem with an objective function based on these costs. A pseudo-polynomial-time algorithm is derived, which yields a local minimum of the objective function. This local minimum appears to be a reasonable solution, as shown by a range of examples.