Dynamic Partition Healing in Internet Routing

IP-routing protocols assume that the subnetworks they connect are always contiguous; however, in next-generation networks (including mobile or wireless settings) where this assumption may be violated, networks may be unnecessarily partitioned into disconnected zones, even though viable router-level paths exist to maintain connectivity. In this paper, we propose alternate loop-detection and protocol-configuration paradigms for Internet routing protocols that enable dynamic healing of network partitions in an incrementally deployable manner. We use our two proposals to discuss performance tradeoffs inherent in partition-healing methods, including effects on routing-table size, controlplane overhead, and path efficiency.