Variation principle and the universal metric of dynamic routing

TL;DR

This paper introduces a physics-inspired variation principle to derive a universal metric for dynamic routing in computer networks, accounting for packet loss and unifying existing protocols.

Contribution

It proposes a new variation principle-based universal metric for dynamic routing, unifying and deriving existing routing protocol metrics from this fundamental approach.

Findings

Derived a universal metric function considering packet loss

Connected the universal metric to popular routing protocols

Provided a physics-inspired framework for routing optimization

Abstract

In this paper the variation principles from theoretical physics is considered that would describe the process of routing in computer networks. The total traffic which is currently served on all hops of the route has been chosen as the quantity to minimize. Universal metric function has been found for dynamic routing taking into account the packet loss effect. An attempt to derive the metric of the most popular dynamic routing protocols such as RIP, OSPF, EIGRP from universal metric was made.