TY - GEN A1 - Eisenblätter, Andreas A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Wallbaum, Randolf A1 - Wessäly, Roland T1 - Load Balancing in Signaling Transfer Points N2 - Signaling is crucial to the operation of modern telecommunication networks. A breakdown in the signaling infrastructure typically causes customer service failures, incurs revenue losses, and hampers the company image. Therefore, the signaling network has to be highest reliability and survivability. This in particular holds for the routers in such a network, called \textit{signaling transfer points\/} (STPs). The robustness of an STP can be improved by equally distributing the load over the internal processing units. Several constraints have to be taken into account. The load of the links connected to a processing unit changes over time introducing an imbalance of the load. In this paper, we show how integer linear programming can be applied to reduce the imbalance within an STP, while keeping the number of changes small. Two alternative models are presented. Computational experiments validate the integer programming approach in practice. The GSM network operator E-Plus saves substantial amounts of time and money by employing the proposed approach. T3 - ZIB-Report - 02-50 KW - Signaling network KW - STP KW - load-balancing KW - integer programming KW - computations Y1 - 2002 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-7179 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Zymolka, Adrian A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Wessäly, Roland T1 - Transparent optical network design with sparse wavelength conversion N2 - We consider the design of transparent optical networks from a practical perspective. Network operators aim at satisfying the communication demands at minimum cost. Such an optimization involves three interdependent planning issues: the dimensioning of the physical topology, the routing of lightpaths, and the wavelength assignment. Further topics include the reliability of the configuration and sparse wavelength conversion for efficient use of the capacities. In this paper, we investigate this extensive optical network design task. Using a flexible device-based model, we present an integer programming formulation that supports greenfield planning as well as expansion planning on top of an existing network. As solution method, we propose a suitable decomposition approach that separates the wavelength assignment from the dimensioning and routing. Our method in particular provides a lower bound on the total cost which allows to rate the solution quality. Computational experiments on realistic networks approve the solution approach to be appropriate. T3 - ZIB-Report - 02-34 KW - optical network design KW - wavelength conversion KW - integer programming Y1 - 2002 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-7017 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Eisenblätter, Andreas A1 - Fügenschuh, Armin A1 - Koch, Thorsten A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Martin, Alexander A1 - Pfender, Tobias A1 - Wegel, Oliver A1 - Wessäly, Roland T1 - Modelling Feasible Network Configurations for UMTS N2 - A model for the optimisation of the location and configuration of base stations in a UMTS network is described. The focus is primarily on modelling the configuration problem sufficiently accurate using mixed-integer variables and (essentially) linear constraints. These constraints reflect the limited downlink code capacity in each cell, the interference limitations for successful up- and downlink transmissions, the need for sufficiently strong (cell) pilot signals, and the potential gain for mobiles from being in soft(er) hand-over. It is also explained how to use the model as a basis for rating network configurations. T3 - ZIB-Report - 02-16 KW - UMTS KW - radio interface KW - network planning KW - configuration KW - perfect power control KW - mathematical model KW - mixed integer programming KW - MOMENTUM KW - IST-20 Y1 - 2002 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-6837 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Zymolka, Adrian A1 - Jäger, Monika A1 - Hülsermann, Ralf A1 - Gerlach, Christoph T1 - Demand-wise Shared Protection for Meshed Optical Networks N2 - In this paper, a new shared protection mechanism for meshed optical networks is presented. Significant network design cost reductions can be achieved in comparison to the well-known 1+1 protection scheme. Demand-wise Shared Protection (DSP) bases on the diversification of demand routings and exploits the network connectivity to restrict the number of backup lightpaths needed to provide the desired level of prorection. Computational experiments approve the benefits of the concept DSP for cost efficient optical network designs. T3 - ZIB-Report - 03-24 KW - optical network design KW - shared protection KW - meshed optical networks KW - diversification Y1 - 2003 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-7461 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Zymolka, Adrian T1 - Minimum Converter Wavelength Assignment in All-Optical Networks N2 - Finding conflict-free wavelength assignments with a minimum number of required conversions for a routing of the lightpaths is one of the important tasks within the design of all-optical networks. We consider this problem in multi-fiber networks with different types of WDM systems. We give a detailed description of the problem and derive its theoretical complexity. For practical application, we propose several sequential algorithms to compute appropriate wavelength assignments. We also perform computational experiments to evaluate their performance. For the iterative algorithms, we identify characteristic patterns of progression. Two of these algorithms qualify for application in practice. T3 - ZIB-Report - 03-45 KW - minimum converter wavelength assignment KW - optical networks KW - generalized coloring KW - complexity KW - heuristics Y1 - 2003 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-7673 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. T1 - Wavelength Assignment in Multi-Fiber WDM Networks by Generalized Edge Coloring N2 - In this paper, we study wavelength assignment problems in multi-fiber WDM networks. We focus on the special case that all lightpaths have at most two links. This in particular holds in case the network topology is a star. As the links incident to a specific node in a meshed topology form a star subnetwork, results for stars are also of interest for general meshed topologies. We show that wavelength assignment with at most two links per lightpath can be modeled as a generalized edge coloring problem. By this relation, we show that for a network with an even number of fibers at all links and at most two links per lightpath, all lightpaths can be assigned a wavelength without conversion. Moreover, we derive a lower bound on the number of lightpaths to be converted for networks with arbitrary numbers of fibers at the links. A comparison with linear programming lower bounds reveals that the bounds coincide for problems with at most two links per lightpath. For meshed topologies, the cumulative lower bound over all star subnetworks equals the best known solution value for all realistic wavelength assignment instances available, by this proving optimality. T3 - ZIB-Report - 05-13 KW - wavelength assignment KW - optical networks KW - graph theory KW - combinatorial optimization KW - integer programming Y1 - 2005 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-8478 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Bodlaender, Hans L. A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Wolle, Thomas T1 - Contraction and Treewidth Lower Bounds N2 - Edge contraction is shown to be a useful mechanism to improve lower bound heuristics for treewidth. A successful lower bound for treewidth is the degeneracy: the maximum over all subgraphs of the minimum degree. The degeneracy is polynomial time computable. We introduce the notion of contraction degeneracy: the maximum over all minors of the minimum degree. We show that the contraction degeneracy problem is NP-complete, even for bipartite graphs, but for fixed $k$, it is polynomial time decidable if a given graph $G$ has contraction degeneracy at least $k$. Heuristics for computing the contraction degeneracy are proposed and evaluated. It is shown that these can lead in practice to considerable improvements of the lower bound for treewidth, but can perform arbitrarily bad on some examples. A study is also made for the combination of contraction with Lucena's lower bound based on Maximum Cardinality Search (Lucena, 2003). Finally, heuristics for the treewidth are proposed and! evaluated that combine contraction with a treewidth lower bound technique by Clautiaux et al (2003). T3 - ZIB-Report - 04-29 KW - treewidth KW - contraction degeneracy KW - graph minors KW - lower bounds KW - maximum cardinality search Y1 - 2004 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-8042 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. T1 - Re-Optimization of Signaling Transfer Points N2 - In this paper we describe the results of a computational study towards the (re)optimization of signaling transfer points (STPs) in telecommunication networks. The best performance of an STP is achieved whenever the traffic load is evenly distributed among the internal components. Due to the continuously changing traffic pattern, the load of the components has to be re-optimized on a regular basis. Besides the balancing objective also the number of rearrangements have to be taken into account. In this paper we present two alternative formulations to deal with both requirements. Computational results show that for both formulations (near) optimal solutions can be obtained within reasonable time limits. T3 - ZIB-Report - 00-18 KW - Telecommunications KW - Modeling KW - Integer Programming Y1 - 2000 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-5863 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Eisenblätter, Andreas A1 - Grötschel, Martin A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. T1 - Frequency Planning and Ramifications of Coloring N2 - This paper surveys frequency assignment problems coming up in planning wireless communication services. It particularly focuses on cellular mobile phone systems such as GSM, a technology that revolutionizes communication. Traditional vertex coloring provides a conceptual framework for the mathematical modeling of many frequency planning problems. This basic form, however, needs various extensions to cover technical and organizational side constraints. Among these ramifications are $T$-coloring and list coloring. To model all the subtleties, the techniques of integer programming have proven to be very useful. The ability to produce good frequency plans in practice is essential for the quality of mobile phone networks. The present algorithmic solution methods employ variants of some of the traditional coloring heuristics as well as more sophisticated machinery from mathematical programming. This paper will also address this issue. Finally, this paper discusses several practical frequency assignment problems in detail, states the associated mathematical models, and also points to public electronic libraries of frequency assignment problems from practice. The associated graphs have up to several thousand nodes and range from rather sparse to almost complete. T3 - ZIB-Report - 00-47 KW - frequency assignment KW - graph coloring Y1 - 2000 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-6152 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Eisenblätter, Andreas A1 - Grötschel, Martin A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. T1 - Frequenzplanung im Mobilfunk N2 - Telekommunikation ist seit Jahren \glqq in\grqq. Zunächst gab es einen enormen Aufschwung; neue Technologien und Dienste haben eine überwältigende, nicht vorhersehbare Akzeptanz gefunden. Derzeit ist -- ausgelöst durch die UMTS-Lizenzversteigerungen, Rezessions- und Sättigungstendenzen -- eine Krise zu verzeichnen. Viele (auch wir) sind davon überzeugt, dass technischer Fortschritt und nützliche Dienste demnächst die Stimmung wieder ändern werden. Wenigen ist allerdings bewusst, welche Rolle Mathematik bei der Entwicklung und dem effizienten Einsatz vieler der neuen Kommunikationstechnologien spielt. In diesem Artikel soll kein Überblick über diesen umfangreichen Themenkreis gegeben werden. Wir zeigen lediglich an einem konkreten Beispiel aus dem Mobilfunk, der Frequenzplanung in GSM-Funknetzen, was man durch geeignete Modellierung der praktischen Fragestellung und den Einsatz problemadäquater Algorithmen erreichen kann. T3 - ZIB-Report - 02-09 KW - Telekommunikation KW - Frequenzplanung KW - Mobilfunk KW - GSM-Funknetze Y1 - 2002 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-6762 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Wagler, Annegret T1 - The extreme points of QSTAB(G) and its implications N2 - Perfect graphs constitute a well-studied graph class with a rich structure, reflected by many characterizations w.r.t different concepts. Perfect graphs are, e.g., characterized as precisely those graphs $G$ where the stable set polytope STAB$(G)$ coincides with the clique constraint stable set polytope QSTAB$(G)$. For all imperfect graphs STAB$(G) \subset$ QSTAB$(G)$ holds and, therefore, it is natural to measure imperfection in terms of the difference between STAB$(G)$ and QSTAB$(G)$. Several concepts have been developed in this direction, for instance the dilation ratio of STAB$(G)$ and QSTAB$(G)$ which is equivalent to the imperfection ratio imp$(G)$ of $G$. To determine imp$(G)$, both knowledge on the facets of STAB$(G)$ and the extreme points of QSTAB$(G)$ is required. The anti-blocking theory of polyhedra yields all {\em dominating} extreme points of QSTAB$(G)$, provided a complete description of the facets of STAB$(\overline G)$ is known. As this is typically not the case, we extend the result on anti-blocking polyhedra to a {\em complete} characterization of the extreme points of QSTAB$(G)$ by establishing a 1-1 correspondence to the facet-defining subgraphs of $\overline G$. We discuss several consequences, in particular, we give alternative proofs of several famous results. T3 - ZIB-Report - 06-30 KW - perfect graphs KW - imperfection ratio KW - stable set polytope Y1 - 2006 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-9249 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Raack, Christian A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Wessäly, Roland T1 - On the strength of cut-based inequalities for capacitated network design polyhedra N2 - In this paper we study capacitated network design problems, differentiating directed, bidirected and undirected link capacity models. We complement existing polyhedral results for the three variants by new classes of facet-defining valid inequalities and unified lifting results. For this, we study the restriction of the problems to a cut of the network. First, we show that facets of the resulting cutset polyhedra translate into facets of the original network design polyhedra if the two subgraphs defined by the network cut are (strongly) connected. Second, we provide an analysis of the facial structure of cutset polyhedra, elaborating the differences caused by the three different types of capacity constraints. We present flow-cutset inequalities for all three models and show under which conditions these are facet-defining. We also state a new class of facets for the bidirected and undirected case and it is shown how to handle multiple capacity modules by Mixed Integer Rounding (MIR). T3 - ZIB-Report - 07-08 KW - cutset-polyhedra KW - flow-cutset inequalities KW - network design KW - mixed integer programming Y1 - 2007 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-9512 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Zymolka, Adrian A1 - Kutschka, Manuel T1 - Algorithms to Separate {0,1/2}-Chvatal-Gomory Cuts N2 - Chvatal-Gomory cuts are among the most well-known classes of cutting planes for general integer linear programs (ILPs). In case the constraint multipliers are either 0 or $\frac{1}{2}$, such cuts are known as $\{0,\frac{1}{2}\}$-cuts. It has been proven by Caprara and Fischetti (1996) that separation of $\{0,\frac{1}{2}\}$-cuts is NP-hard. In this paper, we study ways to separate $\{0,\frac{1}{2}\}$-cuts effectively in practice. We propose a range of preprocessing rules to reduce the size of the separation problem. The core of the preprocessing builds a Gaussian elimination-like procedure. To separate the most violated $\{0,\frac{1}{2}\}$-cut, we formulate the (reduced) problem as integer linear program. Some simple heuristic separation routines complete the algorithmic framework. Computational experiments on benchmark instances show that the combination of preprocessing with exact and/or heuristic separation is a very vital idea to generate strong generic cutting planes for integer linear programs and to reduce the overall computation times of state-of-the-art ILP-solvers. T3 - ZIB-Report - 07-10 KW - {0 KW - 1/2}-Chvatal-Gomory cuts KW - separation algorithms KW - integer programming Y1 - 2007 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-9531 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Raack, Christian A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Orlowski, Sebastian A1 - Wessäly, Roland T1 - Capacitated network design using general flow-cutset inequalities N2 - This paper deals with directed, bidirected, and undirected capacitated network design problems. Using mixed integer rounding (MIR), we generalize flow-cutset inequalities to these three link types and to an arbitrary modular link capacity structure, and propose a generic separation algorithm. In an extensive computational study on 54 instances from the Survivable Network Design Library (SNDlib), we show that the performance of cplex can significantly be enhanced by this class of cutting planes. The computations reveal the particular importance of the subclass of cutset-inequalities. T3 - ZIB-Report - 07-14 KW - general flow-cutset inequalities KW - capacitated network design KW - mixed integer rounding KW - SNDlib Y1 - 2007 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-9576 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Bauschert, Thomas A1 - Büsing, Christina A1 - D'Andreagiovanni, Fabio A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Kutschka, Manuel A1 - Steglich, Uwe T1 - Network Planning under Demand Uncertainty with Robust Optimization N2 - The planning of a communication network is inevitably depending on the quality of both the planning tool and the demand forecast used. In this article, we show exemplarily how the emerging area of Robust Optimization can advance the network planning by a more accurate mathematical description of the demand uncertainty. After a general introduction of the concept and its application to a basic network design problem, we present two applications: multi-layer and mixed-line-rate network design. We conclude with a discussion of extensions of the robustness concept to increase the accuracy of handling uncertainties. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-59 KW - Network Design, Demand Uncertainty, Robust Optimization, Telecommunications Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-42557 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Orlowski, Sebastian A1 - Raack, Christian A1 - Bayer, Georg A1 - Engel, Thomas T1 - Single-layer Cuts for Multi-layer Network Design Problems N2 - We study a planning problem arising in SDH/WDM multi-layer telecommunication network design. The goal is to find a minimum cost installation of link and node hardware of both network layers such that traffic demands can be realized via grooming and a survivable routing. We present a mixed-integer programming formulation that takes many practical side constraints into account, including node hardware, several bitrates, and survivability against single physical node or link failures. This model is solved using a branch-and-cut approach with problem-specific preprocessing and cutting planes based on either of the two layers. On several realistic two-layer planning scenarios, we show that these cutting planes are still useful in the multi-layer context, helping to increase the dual bound and to reduce the optimality gaps. T3 - ZIB-Report - 07-21 KW - telecommunication network KW - multi-layer network design KW - mixed-integer programming KW - cutting planes Y1 - 2007 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-9641 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Koster, Arie M.C.A. A1 - Kutschka, Manuel A1 - Raack, Christian T1 - Robust Network Design: Formulations, Valid Inequalities, and Computations N2 - Traffic in communication networks fluctuates heavily over time. Thus, to avoid capacity bottlenecks, operators highly overestimate the traffic volume during network planning. In this paper we consider telecommunication network design under traffic uncertainty, adapting the robust optimization approach of Bertsimas and Sim [2004]. We present three different mathematical formulations for this problem, provide valid inequalities, study the computational implications, and evaluate the realized robustness. To enhance the performance of the mixed-integer programming solver we derive robust cutset inequalities generalizing their deterministic counterparts. Instead of a single cutset inequality for every network cut, we derive multiple valid inequalities by exploiting the extra variables available in the robust formulations. We show that these inequalities define facets under certain conditions and that they completely describe a projection of the robust cutset polyhedron if the cutset consists of a single edge. For realistic networks and live traffic measurements we compare the formulations and report on the speed up by the valid inequalities. We study the "price of robustness" and evaluate the approach by analyzing the real network load. The results show that the robust optimization approach has the potential to support network planners better than present methods. T3 - ZIB-Report - 11-34 KW - robust network design KW - cutset inequalities Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-13890 SN - 1438-0064 ER -