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INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NETWORK MANAGEMENT

Int. J. Network Mgmt 2011; 21: 4564


Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nem.770

Traffic engineering supported by Inherent Network Management:


analysis of resource efficiency and cost saving potential
Gerhard Halinger1,*, Giorgio Nunzi2, Catalin Meirosu3, Changpeng Fan4 and
Frank-Uwe Andersen5
1

Deutsche Telekom Netzproduktion GmbH, Darmstadt, Germany


2
NEC Europe Ltd, Heidelberg, Germany
3
Ericsson, Stockholm, Sweden
4
Nokia Siemens Networks GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin, Germany
5
Siemens AG, Berlin, Germany

SUMMARY

nem_770

45..64

Future Internet, inherent traffic and network management as well as the corresponding business aspects are
topics of intensive research activity. The combination of those areas is a main focus of Inherent Network
Management (INM) as a management framework based on distributed, self-organizing and autonomous
approaches to address new challenges in a trend towards heterogeneous and dynamic future networking
environments. We describe the INM design and behaviors especially with regard to advanced monitoring
and fast failure response to enable more flexibility in traffic engineering, in order to improve the control and
utilization of bandwidth and other network resources. We analyze a case study on the process of upgrading
the links in broadband access networks, as a steadily ongoing planning procedure in operational fixed and
mobile networks to keep pace with rapidly growing user demand and Internet traffic. Full mesh topologies
are considered as a relevant core network structure that allows for an explicit analytical comparison of the
resource and cost efficiency with and without optimized load balancing. The results indicate that flexible
path design with INM support can increase the admissible throughput or, vice versa, reduce part of the
over-provisioning of routing and transmission capacity with corresponding savings in capital expenditure as
well as for operational expenditure due to reduced energy consumption. Copyright 2011 John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd.
Received 4 November 2010; Accepted 5 November 2010

1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Future Internet trends
When we look into future telecommunication scenarios, in 10 years from now we expect several midto long-term trends and emerging shifts in technology and applications, although quantitative predictions often remain speculative:

growth of traffic demand, bandwidth and network size, number of IP nodes and links [1,2];
a trend towards unrestricted IP mobility;
a trend towards IP-TV convergence as part of a broad variety of integrated services over IP;
a trend towards distributed creation and delivery of information, data and services;
a trend towards heterogeneity combined of fixed, wireless, sensor, static and dynamic ad hoc
networks.

*Correspondence to: Gerhard Halinger, Deutsche Telekom Netzproduktion GmbH, Fixed Mobile Engineering,
Heinrich-Hertz-Str. 3-7, D-64295 Darmstadt, Germany.
E-mail: gerhard.hasslinger@telekom.de
Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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G. HASSLINGER ET AL.

Those trends impact network manageability differently. Pure traffic and bandwidth growth does not
necessarily require significant changes in the management structure, although such growth is an
enabler for broadband services (video, TV) of good quality. Mobility, distributed schemes and a
broader spectrum of service and quality of service (QoS) demands make network management more
challenging. On the other hand, business and social activity will increasingly depend on the availability
of a variety of communication functions with efficient and reliable control.
1.2. Growth trends for Internet traffic
Traffic on networks for broadband Internet access is steadily increasing, although at different speeds
depending on the deployment stages of technology in different regions. The Minnesota Internet Traffic
Studies (MINTS) [3] give an overview including links to many relevant sources with measurement
data from traffic exchange points and reference to official statistics of some countries, e.g. for Australia
or Hong Kong [4,5]. Based on that, Odlyzko et al. [2] estimated a 100% traffic growth rate per year in
core areas of the Internet on average from 1990 to 2002. Meanwhile, the global annual traffic growth
rate slowed down to about 45% [3], as also confirmed in white papers on IP traffic development by
Cisco Systems [1]. Figure 1 compares estimations on IP traffic growth from several sources. The main
current trends and forecasts are as follows:

Global IP traffic will nearly double every 2 years through 2013.


Peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic is growing in volume, but declining as a percentage.
Video is a major source of IP traffic growth. In 2013, all video types will account for >90% of
consumer traffic [1].

There is a discrepancy between the access speed provided in broadband access networks and the
available bandwidths in core networks. According to periodically updated statistics by the content
delivery network provider Akamai [6], several Asian countries provide the highest speeds for broadband access per user (South Korea: 12 Mbit/s; Hong Kong: 8Mbit/s; Japan, Romania: 7 Mbit/s),
followed by countries in Europe and North America in the range of 36 Mbit/s. In Germany, for
instance, access speeds of well beyond 15 million broadband access lines with a mean rate of 4 Mbit/s
[6] sum up to a total access capacity of >50 Tbit/s for private households. If most users exploit their

Internet traffic: growth factors since 2003

35
Australian Bureau of Statistics
30

Hong Kong Office of Telecommunication


Estimate by MINTS

25

Cisco: Global Network Index & Forecast

20
15
10
5
0
2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

Year

Figure 1. Internet traffic growth observed from different sources [1,3,4,5].


Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Int. J. Network Mgmt 2011; 21: 4564


DOI: 10.1002/nem

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access speed then even 100 Gbit/s IP and Ethernet links as currently standardized for next-generation
IP backbones would be insufficient, while a next wave of video and IP-TV applications achieving
HDTV quality is expected to further raise traffic demands. In this situation, network providers depend
on exploiting statistical multiplexing and traffic engineering gains for efficient production in competitive markets.
1.3. Integrated traffic and network management
Todays deployed management solutions have two main characteristics. First, managed devices generally present simple and low-level interfaces. Secondly, management stations interact directly with
managed devices typically on a per-device basis. There is no interaction among managed devices for
management purposes and those devices have little autonomy in making management decisions. As a
consequence, managed devices are dumb from a management standpoint.
Historically, management solutions were designed with these two characteristics in order to have
network elements of low complexity, with a clear separation between the managed systems that
provide a service and the management that performs configuration and supervision, as well as to allow
for a simple, centralized or hierarchical structuring.
In future Internet projects [711] and in current standardization [12,13], a novel approach of
envisioning and engineering management concepts and capabilities is studied that abandons both
previously noted characteristics. The approach we propose in the 4WARD project [7] is Inherent
Network Management (INM). Its basic enabling concepts are decentralization, self-organization, and
autonomy. The idea is that management tasks are delegated from management stations outside the
network to the network itself. The INM approach therefore involves embedding management functions
in the network or, in other words, making the network more intelligent. The managed systems now take
an active role in performing, for instance, reconfiguration or self-healing in an autonomic manner.
In order to realize this vision, a management entity with processing and communication functions
is associated with each network element or device, which, in addition to monitoring and configuring
local parameters, communicates with peer entities in its proximity. The collection of these entities
creates a management plane, a thin management overlay inside the network that performs monitoring
and control tasks as depicted in Figure 2.
The potential benefits of future Internet management include:

a high level of scalability of management systems, for instance, in terms of short execution times
and low traffic overhead in large-scale systems;
fast reaction times in response to faults, configuration changes, load changes, etc., in order to
increase the adaptability of the network. Together with further embedded functions, a high level
of robustness of the managed system is targeted as a major INM objective;

Figure 2. Inherent Network Management (INM): functions on network elements building


a management overlay.
Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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G. HASSLINGER ET AL.

new business opportunities through new developing management concepts and technologies. A
higher degree of automation compared to traditional achievements permits a reduction of operational expenditures. Capital expenditures are also reduced where INM technologies enable more
efficient use of the network infrastructure, which should more than compensate the costs for
bringing management functionality into the entities.

The need and benefit of self-organizing and distributed management approaches depend on the
application scenarios. Heterogeneous and dynamic networking environments as in mobile ad hoc
networks (MANET), sensor or P2P networks make it difficult to keep a complete up-to-date network
status for centralized control. Currently an IETF standardization group on Routing Over Low power
and Lossy networks (ROLL) [14] is studying new routing schemes for dynamic environments, where
management concepts for such networks can be expected in a next step. Thus we expect first
installations of INM functionality in areas where new approaches are indispensible, and if proving to
be useful for special purposes they may find broader application in combination with current management schemes rather than replacing them.
We proceed in Section 2 with an introduction to the INM design space and main behaviors, where
especially INM functions for support of traffic management are summarized. In addition, business
aspects in CAPEX versus OPEX components are discussed, including related literature. Section 3
addresses upgrading processes for bandwidth in IP networks and shows how traffic engineering can
increase throughput and resource utilization. The cost-saving effect of traffic engineering is analyzed
in Sections 4 and 5 for the case of full mesh networks, followed by estimations for special cases and
extensions. The conclusions of Section 6 show options to extend the concrete scenarios in the
generalized framework of future Internet management approaches.

2. INHERENT NETWORK MANAGEMENT: DESIGN, MAIN BEHAVIORS AND


BUSINESS IMPACT
2.1. INM design and behavior
The INM architecture is based on self-managing entities (SE) and is described in detail in the 4WARD
project [7]. A self-managing entity encapsulates service functionality along with management functionality associated to that particular service. The interaction with the human operator takes place
through the Global Management Point (GMP) interface. The GMP supports a high-level specification
of goals and objectives to be achieved by the SEs. Within a management domain, the SEs are arranged
in a hierarchy following service composition rules, with more abstract or complex services located at
the higher levels of the hierarchy and simple, atomic services located at the lowest levels of the
hierarchy. The SEs take part in distributed management operations according to their specific capabilities. Such capabilities for real-time monitoring [15], evaluation of information using aggregation
and filtering rules [16] and handling of exceptional and failure situations [16] were developed and
demonstrated within the 4WARD project.
In Figure 3, the Traffic Engineering Control SE is the highest-level entity, which makes suggestions
to the operator on how to upgrade bandwidth and reroute traffic according to predefined objectives that
could be related to cost models. The Traffic Engineering Control SE is responsible for optimizing the
design of network paths based on the traffic matrix and a view of the topology, but its Path Design and
Control Service acts on lower-level entities only when instructed by the operator. The operator or
network planner then can decide on how to adapt the network resources and traffic paths, taking into
account the actual and forecast demand for resources and their prices.
For a set of most relevant failure cases, the Traffic Engineering Control SE would be pre-authorized
to automatically reconfigure a prepared backup path design. The Traffic Engineering (TE) Segment SE
collects traffic statistics on point-to-point links and can carry out the configuration for path design
updates on the routers. Its Transmit Service performs a simple forwarding of bits to the next segment
along the path. The MPLS LSP SE is a higher-level entity responsible for implementing label switched
paths (LSP) to route the traffic on a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) based network [14]. MPLS
is one example of an underlying technology providing advanced support of traffic engineering for fixed
Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Int. J. Network Mgmt 2011; 21: 4564


DOI: 10.1002/nem

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core and access networks as discussed in Section 3.1. It is composed of TE Segment entities, but it has
its own capabilities with respect to adaptation, governed through the Path Design and Control Service
of the Traffic Engineering Control SE.
The Connect Service of the MPLS LSP SE offers a convenient interface where customers, e.g. large
enterprises that purchase VPN services, transmit their data onto the network. Naturally, all the SEs
presented in Figure 3 would be much more complicated in a real-life implementation, but in this
example we chose to focus on the capabilities relevant to the discussion outlined in the following
sections. From a deployment point of view, the functionality embedded into the TE Segment and
MPLS LSP SEs would be included with INM-enabled switches and routers, while the Traffic Engineering Control SE would likely be part of a management system.
As a comparison with other industry branches, the main approach underlying INM is basically
similar to a deployment trend for passenger trains with distributed engines, for example in the German
ICE-3 series [17] and also for local trains. In fact these trains abandoned the separate engine wagon and
instead adopted a distributed engine concept under the passenger wagons. The new design allowed the
train system:

to be fully equipped and utilized with passenger seats;


to be more reliable against engine failures; and
to be more powerful for higher speed and steeper trails.

Very similar considerations can be transposed to the analysis of the practical impacts of the INM
architecture. Given this flexibility with regard to business objectives, the INM design approach should
be regarded as an enabler with respect to traditional architectures. We list examples of capabilities and
behaviors of self-managing entities that are relevant for the case study in the sequel:

Figure 3. Inherent Network Management based on self-managing entities (SE).


Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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G. HASSLINGER ET AL.

Self-optimization. This behavior includes the enforcement of real-time traffic engineering with
load balancing and fault resilience. A set of algorithms for support functions has been transferred
or newly developed as a mainstream task of INM integration [7,1821].
Self-protection. This behavior is characterized by the adaptation of access control policies and
performance thresholds to take into account a scarcity of resources [22]. When resources are
becoming scarce, the risk of congestion or request denial is higher, whereas the space for resource
optimization is reduced. Therefore the behavior of the INM capabilities should change accordingly.
Human assistance. This behavior is often required to help operators in decision processes and
other network management tasks. First, INM can identify the bottleneck of the existing infrastructure. Secondly, INM can offer the most relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to plan
the necessary adaptation or changes, e.g. average traffic per user or traffic profiles over time
zones. In addition, the initial configuration of new equipment can be fully automated through a
P2P exchange of configuration data between the existing nodes and the newly added. This
transfer of initial configuration is certainly better performed with an INM distributed architecture. Wherever possible, INM adopts automated support to reduce or to facilitate human
intervention [7].
Change of business objectives. This behavior takes into account the reconfiguration of access
control policies, when a large amount of new resources suddenly becomes available. If virtualization is adopted as a technological instrument for network upgrades, different business
objectives can be enforced in order to exploit the benefits of virtualization, for example, open
access to a first virtual environment and role-based access to another [23].

The main effect and result of the broader INM design space when compared to classical management
are seen in the flexibility to adapt to the needs of a variety of future Internet scenarios.

2.2. The impact of INM on OPEX and CAPEX: related work


Network management has a direct influence on operation and on investment in infrastructure.
Corresponding operational (OPEX) and capital (CAPEX) expenditures are interrelated in many ways,
where new automated management functions partly shift costs from OPEX to CAPEX while reducing
the total cost of ownership. With more heterogeneous scenarios in next-generation networks, the
dominant contributions of OPEX and CAPEX largely differ in the areas of fixed, wireless, mobile or
sensor networks depending on the level of achievable automated, distributed and self-organized
functions.
Studies of OPEX and CAPEX in recent EU-funded projects [1113] came up with the proposal of
service-centric network management [24]. The authors assume that element, domain and network
manager components still exist as different levels of embedded functionality, making direct comparisons
with INMs clean slate approach difficult. However, knowledge management and self-learning [25] are
described as enablers for an inherent network management. The authors identify a trend towards
super-NOCs, i.e., extremely concentrated operation centers, rather than distributed management.
The SOCRATES project [11,13] investigates self-healing, self-configuration and self-optimization
methods for 3GPP system architecture in long-term evolution (LTE/eUTRAN) in the context of SelfOrganizing Networks (3GPP SON) [12]. The desired outcome again is reduced OPEX/CAPEX through
automation, which covers at least one dimension of the INM design space. Thus the selected use cases,
originally from the next-generation network management group (NGNM), are also within the INM
scope.
Amirijoo et al. [13] first identify where self-management is applicable, collect requirements, define
metrics and benchmarks, and compare automated versus manual procedures typical in mobile network
operation in order to establish a CAPEX/OPEX model. CAPEX are estimated by the number of
network elements that are needed to cover a certain service area with pre-specified QoS requirements,
to be multiplied by the cost per element.
Verbrugge et al. [24] find a way to separate CAPEX and OPEX, going beyond considering OPEX
as a certain percentage of CAPEX as a usual rule of thumb. A matrix is provided, listing OPEX and
other cost types, e.g. repair and provisioning. The focus is on optical networks, along with the
Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Int. J. Network Mgmt 2011; 21: 4564


DOI: 10.1002/nem

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traditional network management hierarchy. A concrete case study shows that a Generalized Multiprotocol Label Switching (GMPLS) control plane has clearly lower cost for service provisioning than
traditional 1 + 1 protection. This work already reveals high complexity in determining CAPEX and
OPEX when restricted only to the optical layer.
In Kallin et al. [26] traditional and automation-based interdomain architectures for carrier Ethernet
are qualitatively compared for OPEX differences. The increased automation is achieved on an IT/OSS
level as part of the ETNA interdomain architecture, by the use of loose domain chains and exchange
of templates for discovery of services in adjacent domains and facilitation of services within two
peering models: alliance peering and neutral exchange peering. The results show a trade-off between
increased infrastructure costs, decreased routine operations and reparation, and equal or increased
operational network planning.
Economic analysis of P2P overlays is addressed by the SmoothIT project [10], including contributions to the IETF standardization in the working group on Application Layer Traffic Optimization
(ALTO) [14]. The main focus is on efficient transport paths with preference for local data exchange and
on incentives for the involved parties.
Regarding Inherent Network Management, we recognize the following impact factors as important
for business value:

Variation on per-equipment CAPEX. Self-management adds functionalities to the equipment,


which are regarded as value-added functions for operators. These extra features will undoubtedly
be reflected in a cost increment in the individual equipment compared to the equipment without
self-management functionalities. The bottom line here is that network equipment is nowadays
becoming mature, and the basic technology is becoming cheaper. Added functionalities, like
self-management, are embedded in a strategy to keep per-equipment CAPEX constant while
building added-value functions to legacy equipment.
Variation on CAPEX for network-wide INM management capabilities. Self-management can
significantly increase the exploitation of an existing infrastructure. Current approaches rely on
over-provisioning policies, partly because existing management operations are not considered
trustworthy for prompt resilience. INM self-management functions embedded in the network
support fast recovery from failures and optimize resource efficiency like bandwidth, buffer and
server capacity such that more users can be accommodated within the existing network.
Variation on OPEX. INM can impact on the contribution to operations and maintenance
(OAM) costs. Self-management automates much of the operations that today require human
intervention. In this way OPEX is partly shifted to CAPEX while overall costs are reduced
[24].

3. TRAFFIC ENGINEERING AND BANDWIDTH UPGRADES IN BROADBAND


ACCESS NETWORKS
3.1. Support for traffic engineering on IP/MPLS and other networking technologies
In the sequel, we investigate a case study on the efficiency of traffic management for broadband access
networks. We consider upgrading processes to higher-link bandwidth in order to cope with Internet
traffic growth. A simplified approach based on exponential traffic growth and a cost model including
exponentially decreasing prices per bandwidth unit allows for analytical results on resource utilization
and costs in threshold-based upgrading strategies. Network-wide load balancing is shown to be
beneficial as compared to independent per link upgrades.
As a precondition to performing and controlling load balancing, a set of traffic engineering functions
has to be provided as a part of the network management, including:

monitoring and situation awareness of the current network topology and traffic on the links and
nodes;
the ability to direct traffic on explicit paths from source to destination for load control;

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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threshold-based decisions to adapt to changing load conditions and to trigger upgrades;


online tools to compute and configure optimized traffic path designs in a network-wide view; and
fast failure resilience by automated and instantaneous switching to backup paths that have been
prepared for a set of the most relevant failure cases, at least for single-link breakdowns.

When looking at current networking scenarios we seldom find full support for those traffic
engineering prerequisites. SDH ring networks are able to react on failed segments by redirecting the
traffic in the opposite direction around the ring within 50 ms and thus can meet crucial delay bounds
for seamless continuation of real-time services, but without network-wide load control. In pure IP
networks, measurement of the link load in 5 or 15 min intervals has been the basic information
for network planning for a long time. Although IP routing automatically adapts to failures, it usually
lasts several seconds until routing information and rerouting paths stabilize to adapt to changes in
topology. In addition, it is difficult to enhance the shortest path first principle with load balancing
and control by manipulating the routing weights. Multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) has been
developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a networking sub-layer providing
advanced traffic engineering support, including all the previously listed functions by explicit
source-to-destination paths in normal operation and backup paths for failure cases with measurement options per path. MPLS is deployed in the backbone of many large ISPs and is currently
still in development by one of the most active working groups within the IETF [14]. Nonetheless,
there is a trade-off between traffic path design for optimized load balancing and short rerouting
delays, especially when many paths have to be switched to achieve balanced load in failure
events.
The work on INM in the 4WARD project [7] addresses traffic management functions in different
networking environments from fixed broadband access to mobile and dynamic ad hoc scenarios that
are expected to become more relevant on the Internet. MPLS functions for load control in normal
operation as well as for failure resilience have been considered in this framework for optimized
network throughput based on centralized and distributed approaches [18,21,27]. Other network technologies including mobility and higher dynamics often make traffic engineering much more
challenging while offering fewer control functions. Therefore fast and efficient algorithms for monitoring and response by management have been studied in different environments [8,9,1416,20,22,28].
The main contributions within the INM framework address:

decentralized monitoring techniques based on gossiping and tree-based distribution of information [15]; as an alternative monitoring scheme, structured P2P networks [28] using distributed
hash tables are proposed for connecting self-organizing entities. Gossiping and P2P approaches
can deal with dynamic networks subject to a high churn rate;
aggregation and evaluation of information in management overlays, from simple functions, e.g.
a sum or a minimum to more complex evaluations of network-wide threshold crossings [16,22];
estimation of the size of networks or of groups with specific characteristics in the network at
minimum messaging overhead [19], as a basic function to be embedded in higher-layer evaluations and applications;
efficient topology discovery using a new hide and seek principle for scalable information propagation and synchronization [29]; and
search methods for highly dynamic networks using combinations of flooding and random walks,
including partially available information about the path to a target [20].

In addition, IMN includes work on generic paths and path optimization with regard to failure resilience
[7,18,21]. Together with standardization for pre-configuration mechanisms [11] the future Internet
initiatives cover support of the complete traffic engineering cycle as described below, where the main
focus is on distributed schemes for heterogeneous and dynamic networks rather than on centralized
approaches for static or slowly varying topologies. Even if the efficiency of traffic management differs
in heterogeneous network environments, the trend to green IT puts pressure towards optimized
resource utilization, since savings in installed routing equipment also reduce energy consumption.
Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Thus INM as a component of future Internet approaches can accelerate the development towards
application of traffic engineering with full path flexibility and control for optimum resource
utilization.
For the analysis of load balancing and corresponding cost savings we assume that a full traffic
engineering cycle can be established as for MPLS networks, including:
1. measurement of the current edge-to-edge flow demands;
2. computation of an optimized network wide path design; and
3. (re)configuration of the computed design into the routers.
Traffic engineering tools, e.g. TE-Scout [21], have been developed to support the full cycle, where a
re-optimization of traffic paths is recommended to adapt to any change in topology, upgrades of link
bandwidth or shifts being encountered in the traffic matrix. Those tools can also be used to investigate
failure resilience and to enhance the topology for throughput optimization, as shown with regard to
single-link failures in Halinger [21].
We compare classical (over-)provisioning methods with advanced traffic management to be supported by INM methods. In particular, the resource utilization and costs are analyzed for:

usual link upgrades separately for each link without adaptation of traffic paths; and
load-balanced traffic engineering solutions involving path (re)optimization after each upgrade or
change in topology.

Single-link upgrades without further traffic redirection are subject to considerable inefficiency, since
an upgrade to k-fold capacity drastically reduces the load on the link by a reciprocal factor 1/k.
Upgrades of backbone links are usually triggered when the link load is approaching a threshold.
Those thresholds have to include safety margins for ensuring QoS with regard to short-term traffic
burstiness [30] as well as busy hours in daily traffic profiles and long-term variability over weeks
and months with seasonal effects. Since upgrades have to be planned several months in advance,
prognosis for traffic growth in the meantime and an additional safety margin for unforeseen delays
in the upgrade processes have to be taken into account until a planned upgrade is finally in operation
[31]. Service marketing, accounting and business case considerations also have an impact on traffic
development on a medium- to long-term scale. Last but not least, global content delivery platforms
have a major influence on traffic flows, which support popular web sites by distributing large
content volumes via global server farms which deliver data from a server in the near of the requesting user [32].

3.2. Modeling of link utilization during bandwidth upgrade cycles


We assume an exponential traffic growth over time and denote:

tUp as the link load threshold, which triggers the next upgrade (0 < tUp 1 as a percentage of
bandwidth);
fUp as the capacity upgrade factor (fUp > 1);
dUp as the duration of an upgrade period from one link upgrade to the next one.

Figure 4 illustrates the development of link loads, when upgrades are performed by factors fUp = 2, 4
and 10. In the past decade, IP core capacities scaled in fourfold steps, e.g. from 2.5 Gbit/s to 10 Gbit/s
and 40 Gbit/s, whereas Ethernet proceeds to 10-fold capacity (10 Mbit/s, 100 Mbit/s, 1 Gbit/s,
10 Gbit/s). Naturally, upgrades to twice the capacity are always possible by replicating a link. Ethernet
standardization is currently developing towards 40 Gbit/s and 100 Gbit/s interfaces, which are on the
road map of router manufacturers within 1 or 2 years.
We can compute the mean link load rMean during an upgrade period of length dUp in terms of the ratio
of the areas below the exponential growth curve and below the step function for capacity upgrades in
Figure 4. In such a period a constant growth rate w lifts the traffic demand from the initial level tUp to
the level tUp fUp, while the maximum allowable link bandwidth is constant at fUp. Figure 4 illustrates the
case tUp = 1 and we conclude in general:
Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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G. HASSLINGER ET AL.

Traffic growth and provided bandwidth [Gb/s]

50
Exponential Traffic Growth
10-fold upgrades (Ethernet)

40
Upgrades to 4-fold capacity
Upgrades to double capacity

30

20

10
Self-optimization
Behavior

Self-protection
Behavior

Human
Assistance

Change of
Business
Objectives

INM features for support of upgrade processes

2.5
1
0
0

10

11

Figure 4. Link upgrades and resulting utilization gaps for exponential traffic growth.

Mean =

t Up
fUp dUp

dUp

exp( x ) dx =

t Up
exp( x )
fUp dUp

dUp
0

= t Up

1 1// fUp
ln( fUp )

where exp( dUp ) = fUp

(1)

The result shows that the mean link load undercuts the threshold tUp by a factor (1 - 1/fUp)/ln(fUp),
which is independent of w and dUp. For upgrades to 2-, 4- and 10-fold capacity, the mean link load
during the complete upgrade period is about 72%, 54% and 39% of the threshold, respectively. Even
if the traffic does not strictly follow an exponential growth in practice, the estimates still hold for
random variability around an underlying growth tendency, provided that traffic variability and growth
are independent of upgrading instances, i.e., if upgrades are not delayed until congestion, which would
lead to jumps in link traffic volume after widening a bottleneck.

4. TRAFFIC PATH OPTIMIZATION FOR UPGRADES IN A FULL MESH


Traffic engineering can fill utilization gaps after upgrades by redirecting transport paths from links in
the surroundings to an upgraded link, such that newly installed bandwidth is instantly exploited to
smooth down higher load on other links. Traffic engineering tools like TE-Scout [21] have been
developed to compute optimized path designs for load balancing for arbitrary network topologies and
traffic demand matrices based on operations research methods [18,33].
As a concrete case study, we evaluate the potential gain of traffic engineering for a full bidirectional
mesh of K nodes with a uniform traffic matrix, such that all demands tij = d(t) (Mbit/s) between pairs
Ni, Nj (1 i, j K) of edge nodes are equal. Again, we expect an exponential growth of the demands
over time d(t) = d0 exp(wt), starting from initial level d0, where w can be chosen to match current
growth rates [1,2], but has no impact on the long-term utilization determined by equation (1).
Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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TRAFFIC ENGINEERING SUPPORTED BY INM

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N6

N4

N3

N5

N4

Figure 5. Stepwise upgrades in a full mesh of K = 6 nodes.

Although the assumption of unique traffic demands is simplified, the full mesh scenario is currently
relevant in the core of IP/MPLS networks. Regarding transport costs, the router line card interfaces are
much more expensive than optical transmission equipment for the same capacity. As a consequence,
it is cheaper to bypass multiple hops in a mesh IP topology via direct paths on the optical layer,
wherever traffic volume demands are sufficiently large. Therefore full mesh core networks contribute
to cost efficiency as an inner hierarchy level in the backbone, avoiding multiple hops in IP transport
between core nodes. Aggregation regions of almost equal size are usually assigned to core nodes,
which strengthens balanced traffic matrices for broadband access aggregation. Consumer traffic of this
type generated by millions of subscribers dominates over business applications in IP traffic statistics
[1,3]. On the other hand, there is an asymmetry between higher downstream and lower upstream rates
in consumer traffic and there are transit flows of different types on IP networks which contribute to
variability in IP traffic matrices.
A full mesh with unique link capacities C and with load threshold tUp can transport uniform demands
up to
(2)
tij = d ( ) C t Up
by single hop transfers of tij on the link from Ni to Nj. In this scenario, upgrades are triggered
simultaneously for all links when d(t) approaches the load threshold C tUp, yielding a large utilization
gap afterwards. Similar gaps are also encountered in meshed networks when links are upgraded
independent of each other at different points in time when traffic is not redirected to make use of new
capacity as soon as it is available.
Traffic engineering measures for flexible adaptation of paths after upgrades can essentially smooth
down those utilization gaps. The full mesh upgrade can then be divided into several upgrade steps for
subsets of links in order to increase the throughput more gradually, while the utilization can be kept at
a higher level. Some demands have to be split up and transported via multiple paths during intermediate upgrade steps. A full mesh topology suggests up to K - 1 steps until all links are extended from
capacity C to fUp C as follows:
step 1: bidirectional upgrades of all links to and from node N1;
step 2: bidirectional upgrades of all links to and from N2 except for the link to/from N1;
...
step k: N - k bidirectional upgrades of all links between node Nk and nodes Nj for j > k.
Figure 5 illustrates the stepwise upgrading process, where bold lines indicate links with increased
capacity fUp C.
Next we determine the gain in throughput and the corresponding costs for stepwise upgrades. The
allowable throughput has to be evaluated with regard to the complete traffic demand matrix tij, since it
does not help if only a part of the demands can be served at higher bandwidth. Each demand tij is
associated with a multi-path flow from the source Ni to the destination source Nj. The traffic is directed
on a path design especially adapted to the resources in each upgrade step. The flows have to fulfill
boundary conditions for allowable throughput such that all traffic flow intensities are positive and the
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G. HASSLINGER ET AL.

N1

N2

N6

N3

N5

N4

Figure 6. Example of multi-path flows for the demands t5j from node N5.

sum of the flow intensities of all paths over a link does not exceed the link capacity. For a formal
definition and optimization techniques for multi commodity flow problems in telecommunication
networks we refer to other work [18,21,33].
We start with the situation after the first step, when K - 1 links between node N1 and all other nodes
have been upgraded to the capacity fUpC. In order to use the additional capacity to increase throughput,
the following paths pij(k) and flow intensities fij(k) are assigned:

Demands tij for i, j 2 : pij (1) = ( N i , N j ) with fij (1) = Ct Up and


pij ( 2 ) = ( N i , N1 ), ( N1 , N j ) with fij ( 2 ) = ( fUp 1)C t Up /( K 1)
Demands t1 j for j 2 : p1 j (1) = ( N1 , N j ) with f1 j (1) = Ct Up + ( fUp 1)C t Up /( K 1)
Demands ti1 for i 2 : pi1(1) = ( N i , N1 ) with fi1(1) = Ct Up + ( fUp 1)C t Up /( K 1)
Figure 6 demonstrates how traffic demands tij are split up between the link Ni Nj and via
Ni N1 Nj to utilize new upgraded capacity. Consequently, the maximum throughput
CtUp [1 + (fUp - 1)/(K - 1)] is allowable as the total flow for each demand tij, such that all flows on all
included paths generate full utilization on each link, where
links lij for i, j 2, which have not jet been upgraded, are loaded by fij(1) = CtUp;
links l1j for j 2 are loaded by a sum of flows
K
f1 j (1) + i =2 fij (2) = Ct Up + ( K 1) ( fUp 1) Ct Up / ( K 1) = fUpC t Up; and
i j

links li1 for i 2 are loaded by a sum of flows


K
fi1(1) + j =2 fij (2) = Ct Up + ( K 1) ( fUp 1) Ct Up / ( K 1) = fUpC t Up
j i

Similarly, the kth upgrade step increases the allowable throughput to C tUp [1 + k (fUp - 1)/(K - 1)]
until fUp C tUp is reached in the (K - 1)-th and last step. In the path design, k flows of intensity
(fUp - 1)C tUp/(K - 1) are set up from Ni to Nj via N1, N2, . . . , Nk for i, j > k to serve the demand tij.
Flows to and from the nodes N1, N2, . . . , Nk are transported on direct links, which have already been
upgraded in the first k steps.
In summary, the first k steps of an upgrade cycle increase the allowable throughput by a
factor

1 + k (fUp 1) /( K 1) such that the throughput is sufficient for


d ( ) Ct Up [1 + k ( fUp 1) /( K 1)]
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5. MODELING AND ANALYSIS OF CAPEX


5.1. Linear and sub-linear cost model for capacity upgrades with exponential decrease over time
In order to analyze CAPEX for full and stepwise upgrades, a cost model is introduced in two
dimensions regarding:

a cost profile for the dependency on link capacity; and


a cost profile for the development of the costs for the same equipment over time.

For the first dimension we assume CAPEX to increase with capacity such that an upgrade by a factor
e
fUp causes costs of fUpCost cC , where cC are the costs per link of capacity C. The analysis can be carried
out for arbitrary parameter eCost 0 where a corridor 0.5 < eCost 1 covers the most realistic cost
developments. On the maximum side, eCost = 1 corresponds to a linear increase, whereas eCost = 0.5
includes a square root increase such that fourfold capacity doubles the link costs. Technology shifts
may temporarily lead to different behavior but which is not expected to persist in the long-term
perspective. In extreme scenarios, e.g. when no equipment for larger capacity is available, parallel
links of the highest available capacity can be installed which exceed linear cost involving additional
multiplexers and load balancers to operate multiple links in parallel.
For the second cost profile in time domain we rely on Moores law, assuming that there is a
long-term balance between increase in deployed bandwidth and decrease in cost per bandwidth.
Subscriber fees for broadband Internet access are constant or even decreasing over time despite
higher access speeds being offered. Therefore network providers would be ruined in a trade-off
between decreasing flat rate fees and increasing traffic driven costs if costs per link bandwidth did
not decrease at least at the same ratio as offered bandwidth is increasing over time. We expect the
demand for higher bandwidth to hold on for more than the next decade, since video services still
benefit from higher transfer rates up to the Gbit/s range for HDTV quality, which is far beyond
todays access speeds. We briefly discuss the effect of different cost reduction profiles over time in
Section 5.3.
Let T denote the duration of a stepwise upgrade cycle until all links have been upgraded once. An
upgrade of a link from capacity C to fUp C at time t after the start of the cycle is associated
with costs
eCost
c ( fUp , ) = fUp
cC e

eCost
( / T ) ln fUp

) (0 T )

(4)

where a factor fUpCost is compensated within an upgrade cycle; i.e., in the end (t = T ) link capacity fUp
C is as expensive as the capacity C has been at the beginning (t = 0). Figure 7 illustrates the cost model
(4) over an upgrade cycle to fourfold capacity, where c(fUp = 4, t = 4 years) = c(1, 0).
5.2. Evaluation of full and stepwise upgrades based on the cost model
eCost
cC / 2 .
Instantaneous upgrades of all links to the capacity fUp C cause CAPEX of K ( K 1) fUp
For stepwise upgrades we evaluate the instances tk when the kth step becomes necessary, i.e., when
the traffic growth approaches the next threshold according to the maximum throughput of the previous
upgrade step. Assuming exponentially growing traffic demand

d ( ) = e( / T )ln( fUp )C t Up
we first obtain the time tk when the demand exceeds the allowable throughput of the (k - 1)-th upgrade
step from (3):

d ( k ) /C t Up = e( k / T ) ln( fUp ) = 1 + ( fUp 1)(k 1) /( K 1)

k = T ln [1 + ( fUp 1)(k 1) /( K 1)] / ln( fUp )

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Cost Factor Developments for 4-fold Upgrade

58

Exponential Traffic Growth

Linear Cost Factor with Exponential Decrease


Square Root Cost Factor with Exponential Decrease

0
0

2
Years

Stepwise Upgrades: Troughput & CAPEX

Figure 7. Linear and sublinear model of decreasing costs for capacity over time.

4
Exponential Traffic Growth
Throughput: Full 4-fold Upgrades
Throughput: Stepwise Upgrades (K = 6)
Cumulative Costs (Linear Model)
Cumulative Costs (Square Root Model)

0
0

2
Years

Figure 8. Cost factors for stepwise full mesh upgrades for K = 6.

Figures 8 and 9 indicate upgrading instances tk for a full mesh of K = 6 and K = 12 nodes associated
with the time coordinate of each step. The development is shown over an upgrade cycle to fourfold
capacity fUp = 4 which compensates for exponential traffic growth over 4 years according to current
estimates [1,2].
The kth upgrade step includes k [K - 1 - (k - 1)/2] links with associated costs
eCost
CAPEX k = k [ K 1 (k 1) / 2 ] fUp
cC e

eCost
( k / T )ln fUp

ln f eCost ln[1+ ( k 1)( fUp 1) /( K 1)]/ ln( fUp )


eCost
= k [ K 1 (k 1) / 2 ] fUp
cC e ( Up )

In total, CAPEX in a cycle of stepwise upgrades sums to


K 1

K 1

CAPEX = k[ K 1 (k 1) / 2] f
k

k =1

c e (

eCost
ln[1+ (kk 1)( fUp 1) /( K 1)]/ ln( fUp )
ln fUp
eCost
C
Up

k =1

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TRAFFIC ENGINEERING SUPPORTED BY INM

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4
Exponential Traffic Growth
Throughput: Full 4-fold Upgrades
Throughput: Stepwise Upgrades (K=12)
Cumulative Costs (Linear Model)
Cumulative Costs (Square Root Model)

0
0

2
Years

Figure 9. Cost factors for stepwise full mesh upgrades for K = 12.

As compared to full instantaneous upgrades we finally obtain the ratio RCAPEX of CAPEX saving by
stepwise upgrades, depending on three parameters K, fUp and eCost:
K 1

eCost
RCAPEX = CAPEX k /[ K ( K 1) fUp
cC / 2]
k =1

eCost
1 K 1
k 1 ln( fUp
) ln[1+( k 1)( fUp 1) /( K 1)]/ ln( fUp )
= k 2
e

K k =1
K 1

(6)

Thus a CAPEX saving gain can be realized for steady traffic growth in terms of the ratio RCAPEX due
to delayed investment over time, which is permanently achieved in each new upgrade cycle. On the
other hand, this is reflected in higher mean link utilization and causes overhead in advanced traffic
engineering procedures, where paths have to be explicitly redirected for topology or demand changes
including multi-path design per demand. In this way traffic engineering causes more effort in OPEX,
whereas higher flexibility for on-demand re-optimization of traffic flows and energy-saving effects
reduce OPEX. A most critical precondition is the support for fast monitoring [15,16] and reaction in
case of unforeseen changes, i.e., after link failures [34].
From knowledge of the instances tk due to (5) we finally also evaluate the mean utilization
Step Upgr.
Mean
during a stepwise upgrade cycle, which corresponds to the ratio of the areas below the
exponential growth curve and the step curve for throughput in Figure 8:
Step Upgr.
Mean
=

1 1 / fUp
K 1

ln( fUp ) k =1 k +1 k [1 + ( fUp 1)k /( K 1)]


T

(7)

Results for the mean utilization and CAPEX saving ratio are shown in Table 1 for full mesh networks
with K = 6 and K = 12 nodes and for upgrade factors fUp = 2, 4 and 10. In addition, the ratio
Step Upgr.
Full Upgr.
RCapac = Mean
Mean
of installed capacities is included in Table 1 as an indicator of savings in
energy consumption to be expected in operational expenditures. 1/RCapac directly corresponds to energy
costs, if they are linear in the capacity of installed equipment. For a more realistic assumption of a
e
sub-linear increase of energy costs with capacity, a profile fUpPower cC ,Power can be evaluated as an extension with parameter ePower expressing the dependency of energy consumption on capacity C.
The link utilization for stepwise upgrades goes up to 97% for fUp = 2 and is still at 8090% for
fUp = 10, in contrast to large utilization gaps for full upgrades. The cost factor RCAPEX is in the range of
5570% when costs are linear in capacity and still in the range of 7382% for a square root increase.
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G. HASSLINGER ET AL.

Table 1. Saving effects of stepwise upgrades in utilization, installed resources and CAPEX.
RCapac =
Full Upgr.
Mean

fUp

6
12
6
12
6
12

2
2
4
4
10
10

72.1%
72.1%
54.1%
54.1%
39.1%
39.1%

Step Upgr.
Mean

93.4%
96.9%
87.3%
93.9%
79.7%
90.1%

Step Upgr.
Mean

RCAPEX

Full Upgr.
Mean

1.295
1.344
1.613
1.736
2.037
2.304

eCost
Up

= fUp

0.693
0.649
0.658
0.606
0.619
0.555

eCost
0.5
fUp
= fUp

0.819
0.793
0.795
0.765
0.767
0.730

More nodes in the network allow for more intermediate upgrade steps and thus increase the potential
for cost savings. The relative improvement for 12 nodes is about 10% above the results for six nodes,
which still holds when several of the last steps in an upgrade cycle are performed together since each
of them includes only one or a few links.
Figure 8 compares the CAPEX spent in an upgrade cycle to fourfold capacity (fUp = 4). Stepwise
upgrades are done when the load exceeds the allowable throughput of installed resources. Costs
immediately jump fourfold for linear profile (eCost = 1) when the full mesh is upgraded, whereas
CAPEX curves for stepwise upgrades stay below by 3540% until the end of the cycle. Similar curves
e
are observed for square root cost development (eCost = 0.5). The full upgrade cost factor fUpCost = 2
(dotted line in Figure 8) is then undercut in stepwise upgrades by 2024%.
5.3. Discussion of CAPEX aspects for special cases and extensions
If traffic growth would stop, e.g. after 1 year, then cost savings can be even higher since the stepwise
process would stop further upgrades when utilization thresholds are not reached. In all examples of
Figure 8, no more than 1/3 of the full upgrade CAPEX is spent in the stepwise process within the first
year and still no more than half after 2 years. Therefore exponential traffic growth obviously is not an
essential precondition for achieving the CAPEX savings by traffic engineering. It is adopted as a
realistic scenario to enable exact analysis, but CAPEX savings are expected to be even higher when
more flexibility is required for unforeseen variability in traffic growth.
The cost model assumes exponential decrease of costs over time, where the rate depends on the cost
development for capacity, such that necessary costs for upgrades by the same factor remain almost
constant over time. It is obvious that a faster cost decrease rate would lead to a higher gain of the time
shifts for investment in a stepwise strategy, whereas the gain is lower for smaller decrease rates. If costs
remain constant over time then the cumulative costs of stepwise upgrades approach the full upgrading
costs at the end of the cycle, but for a limited budget which does not suffice for a next full upgrade
some upgrade steps may still be affordable, resulting in corresponding higher network throughput.
While the case of full mesh networks leads to the presented analytical solution for path design and
CAPEX evaluation, mesh network topologies in general require optimization tools involving linear
programming or simulated annealing to compute a set of traffic paths for load balancing and near
optimum utilization of the transport capacities [18,21,33]. Results in Halinger et al. [21] confirm a
similar potential for improving resource efficiency and costs also for other IP network topologies with
a connectivity degree of at least 3, such that three disjoint paths exist between each pair of nodes.
Nonetheless, the network-wide optimization of traffic paths makes the control of traffic more complex
than separated treatment for each link. When higher loads are realized, operational processes may
become more critical, such that the possible gain by adjusting load levels has to be exploited with care.
On the other hand, the opportunity to adapt traffic paths gives much more flexibility to deal with
breakdowns in operational processes.
5.4. Failure resilience: throughput and fast redirection of traffic paths
A major challenge for full deployment of the proposed load-balancing mechanisms can be seen in the
additional demand to extend path optimization to integrate failure recovery. This is indispensible, e.g.
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for backbones where a large population would be affected by a failure and in many other missioncritical networks. When traffic engineering is used to optimize the throughput in normal operation, the
effect of non-optimized failure situations would be even more severe. Thus a set of relevant failure
cases including at least single-link failures has to be taken care of by preparing automated switching
to backup paths. Recent work improves the identification of relevant failure cases and possible
resilience enhancements of the topology [34] and uses distributed methods for failure resilience [18].
The network throughput with regard to a set of relevant failure scenarios has to cover all demands in
the current traffic matrix in normal operation as well as in all considered failure cases, such that a
worst-case analysis of the network throughput has to be carried out on the failure set [21,34]. Traffic
engineering tools can pre-compute optimized backup paths for each failure scenario. A single link failure
usually triggers IP/MPLS rerouting and shifts the traffic from the failed link to backup paths. When
network dimensioning in the backbone has to cover single-link failures without optimization tools, this
often means a 50% reduction in allowable throughput with regard to a merge of traffic from two links on
a provided backup path of the same capacity. Experience from Halinger et al. [21] in meshed networks
revealed a higher potential for throughput improvement by traffic engineering when single-link failures
are taken into account as compared to the previous results in section 5.2 for normal operation.
In our case study of a full mesh, traffic on a failed link, e.g. from N1 N2, can again be split up on
K - 2 disjoint backup paths via N1 Nj N2, for all j > 2. When all links have the same bandwidth
C and load threshold tUp, then a balanced redistribution of traffic on those backup paths adds no more
traffic than CtUp/(K - 2) per link. We conclude that the allowable throughput is reduced for single-link
failure resilience by a factor (K - 2)/(K - 1), since a reduction of all flows by this factor would keep
the load below or equal to CtUp on all links, including those carrying a backup path. Thus single-link
failure resilience in a full mesh can be obtained at 20% throughput reduction for K = 6 and less than
10% throughput reduction for K = 12 nodes, respectively. It is not unexpected that a full mesh would
be more favorable in compensating for single-link failures than lower-degree meshed networks studied
in Halinger et al. [21].
Considering failure resilience in stepwise upgrading processes, we can again redistribute traffic
paths from a failed link over K - 2 disjoint two-hop paths via other links, where we have to cope with
different bandwidths C and fUpC. Thus in the worst case all links with backup paths are limited in
capacity by CtUp but have to carry additional traffic fUpCtUp/(K - 2) from an upgraded link. Traffic
reduction by a factor (K - 2)/(K - 2 + fUp) would then lead to an admissible load on all links. The
relative throughput reductions for single-link failure resilience are more severe for different link
bandwidths, especially for a small number of nodes, e.g. 50% for K = 6 and fUp = 4 and still amount to
17% for K = 12 and fUp = 2.
Further aspects with impact on traffic engineering in an inherent network management framework
are as follows:

Centralized versus distributed traffic management. Traffic engineering tools can calculate an
optimized path design network wide [21] or within distributed or hierarchical structures [18],
where the algorithms are first applied to smaller domains and thereafter a network-wide view is
aggregated. The applicability of linear programming or simulated annealing as basic optimization
algorithms depends on the size of the network [21], where exact solutions are only feasible for a
limited network size. Given its distributed architecture, the INM framework supports optimization algorithms in scalable fashion for large networks. Although the studies [18,21] start from
MPLS networks, the methods and results are not restricted to MPLS technology but apply
wherever basic traffic engineering functions for measurement of the traffic matrix, redesign of
traffic paths to adapt to changes and fast monitoring and failure reaction are supported.
Advantage of flexibility. In addition, the flexibility of adapting traffic paths according to
re-optimized designs is beneficial, especially in order to react to unforeseen shifts in the traffic
matrix, e.g. due to hotspot effects or changes in external load controlled by content delivery
networks [32]. Even if redirections of a number of traffic paths for re-optimization cannot always
be done in real time, it still provides an automated and much faster response as compared to
weeks or months of delay in planning and executing link upgrades or other modifications of the
topology in an operational network.

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6. CONCLUSIONS
The analysis of traffic engineering making full use of new installed bandwidth during the continuous
upgrading process in broadband access networks reveals a considerable optimization potential for
higher throughput. Under the assumption of exponential traffic growth and a cost model involving
exponential decrease in costs per bandwidth unit over time, analytical results are derived for the benefit
of load balancing in full mesh networks. They can be transferred to arbitrary topologies with the help
of tools to pre-compute optimum traffic path designs for normal operation as well as failure cases.
Evaluation with realistic traffic growth and cost decrease rates shows that instantaneous adaptation of
traffic paths can save at least 20% of the CAPEX as well as energy consumption as part of the OPEX.
The precondition to exploit the traffic engineering gain can be seen in situation awareness through
monitoring and fast and flexible re-optimization to adapt to changes in traffic demands and in the
network topology. The INM approach addresses such features with focus on evolving communication
technology and standards. While established fixed network environments often can provide advanced
traffic engineering support, e.g. based on multiprotocol label switching, it remains challenging to
enforce the required control functions and flexibility in many upcoming scenarios, such as distributed
overlays, sensor or ad hoc networks. The INM design space has brought up novel network management
approaches for such scenarios that are not covered by current, prevalently centralized management.
Current and novel approaches may be combined for a most appropriate solution depending on the
considered environment. In this way, INM provides many options to improve traffic management,
although it cannot provide full traffic engineering support for all future scenarios, still leaving room for
further study.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work has been developed in a work package on In-Network Management (INM) as part of the
4WARD project in the EU future Internet project cluster. We would like to thank the project partners
for providing a framework for the presented business value evaluations and the European Commission
for funding the project.
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AUTHORS BIOGRAPHIES
Gerhard Halinger received his doctoral degree (1986) and postdoctoral lecture qualification (1994) from the
computer science department at Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany. In 1996 he joined Deutsche
Telekom as a consultant on reliable and secure communication for enterprise networks at T-Systems, Frankfurt.
Since 1999 he is back to Darmstadt, where he is involved in the design and architecture of Deutsche Telekoms
broadband access network with focus on service integration. He is a delegate of Deutsche Telekom in IETF
standardization in the area of fixed mobile convergence. In the last decade he was heading and participating in a
number of European and German research projects in the telecommunication sector. His research interests include
content distribution, traffic engineering, reliability and quality of service aspects of computer and communication
networks, information theory and coding.
Giorgio Nunzi is a Senior Researcher at the NEC Laboratories Europe in Heidelberg, Germany. He has
extensively worked in the field of mobile networks, in the area of management of Radio Access Networks (RAN)
Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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DOI: 10.1002/nem

64

G. HASSLINGER ET AL.

and optical networks. Besides participation to 3GPP standards for management of LTE networks, he has extensively published papers in the area of self-management and served as TPC member or chair of different
conferences in the field (IM07, NOMS08, IM09, MANWEEK09). After the participation to the FP6 project
Ambient Networks, he had a leading role in the FP7 Project 4WARD, where he has been coordinator of the
workpackage on in-network management for the Future Internet. His research interests include automation of
network management, resource optimization and service integration.
Changpeng Fan is currently with the Research Department of the CTO office of Nokia Siemens Networks. Prior
to this, he was a Senior Researcher at the GMD Research Institute for Open Communication Systems, a Senior
Research Staff Member at the C&C Research Laboratories of NEC Europe, and a Technology Manager at the
Research and Concepts Department of Siemens Communications. He has authored and co-authored several
dozens of refereed papers in technical journals and conference proceedings, mainly on multimedia communications and mobile networking. He also holds patents in the related areas in Germany, China, USA and other
countries. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Nanjing University, his Ph.D. degree from the Technical
University of Berlin, all in Computer Science.
Catalin Meirosu is a Research Engineer with Ericsson Research in Stockholm, Sweden, where he is working on
management for self-organizing networks. Prior to Ericsson, Catalin was a Project Development Officer with
TERENA in Amsterdam and a project associate at CERN, Geneva Switzerland. Catalin holds a BSc degree (1999)
from Transilvania University in Brasov, Romania, an MSc (2000) and a PhD degree (2005) from Politehnica
University, Bucharest, Romania. Catalin performed his PhD research at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, while
working on the data acquisition system for theATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Catalin co-authored
more than twenty scientific papers to date. He has several patent applications pending related to his work at Ericsson.
He worked in several EU-funded research projects while at CERN, TERENA and Ericsson Research.
Frank-Uwe Andersen received his M.Sc. in combined and applied computer science, electronics and business
administration from the University of Dortmund, Germany. Since then, he has gathered twelve years of work
experience in various positions with Siemens Germany and Nokia Siemens Networks on telecommunication and
internet projects such as VoIP, IPv6, WAP portals, mobile Peer-to-Peer protocols, B3G mobile architectures, IP
mobility in heterogeneous access networks, self-organized networks and Future Internet Technology. He has
planned and conducted several research projects with academic and industrial partners and also assisted the
European Commission. Having worked as senior specialist, he recently switched to the Siemens Energy Sector as
a project manager.

Copyright 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Int. J. Network Mgmt 2011; 21: 4564


DOI: 10.1002/nem

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