Hierarchical Approach for Survivable Network Design

European Journal of Operational Research. 225(2):223-235.

33 Pages Posted: 13 Jun 2012 Last revised: 22 Nov 2012

See all articles by Anant Balakrishnan

Anant Balakrishnan

McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin

Mihai Banciu

Bucknell University - School of Management

Karolina Glowacka

Stevens Institute of Technology - School of Business

Prakash Mirchandani

University of Pittsburgh

Date Written: December 31, 2011

Abstract

A central design challenge facing network planners is how to select a cost-effective network configuration that can provide uninterrupted service despite edge failures. In this paper, we study the Survivable Network Design (SND) problem, a core model underlying the design of such resilient networks that incorporates complex cost and connectivity trade-offs. Given an undirected graph with specified edge costs and (integer) connectivity requirements between pairs of nodes, the SND problem seeks the minimum cost set of edges that interconnects each node pair with at least as many edge-disjoint paths as the connectivity requirement of the nodes. We develop a hierarchical approach for solving the problem that integrates ideas from decomposition, tabu search, randomization and optimization. The approach decomposes the SND problem into two subproblems, Backbone design and Access design, and uses an iterative multi-stage method for solving the SND problem in a hierarchical fashion. Since both subproblems are NP-hard, we develop effective, optimization-based tabu search strategies that balance intensification and diversification to identify near-optimal solutions. To initiate this method, we develop two heuristic procedures that can yield good starting points. We test the combined approach on large-scale SND instances, and empirically assess the quality of the solutions vis-à-vis optimal values or lower bounds. On average, our hierarchical solution approach generates solutions within 2.7% of optimality even for very large problems (that cannot be solved using exact methods), and our results demonstrate that the performance of the method is robust for a variety of problems with different size and connectivity characteristics.

Keywords: metaheuristics, survivable network design, heuristic analysis, tabu search

JEL Classification: C61, M10

Suggested Citation

Balakrishnan, Anantaram and Banciu, Mihai and Glowacka, Karolina and Mirchandani, Prakash, Hierarchical Approach for Survivable Network Design (December 31, 2011). European Journal of Operational Research. 225(2):223-235., Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2083204 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2083204

Anantaram Balakrishnan

McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin ( email )

Austin, TX 78712
United States

Mihai Banciu (Contact Author)

Bucknell University - School of Management ( email )

Lewisburg, PA 17837
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/mmb018

Karolina Glowacka

Stevens Institute of Technology - School of Business ( email )

Hoboken, NJ 07030
United States

Prakash Mirchandani

University of Pittsburgh ( email )

Pittsburgh, PA 15260
United States

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