Load Balancing in Signaling Transfer Points
Please always quote using this URN: urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-7179
- 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.
Author: | Andreas Eisenblätter, Arie M.C.A. Koster, Randolf Wallbaum, Roland Wessäly |
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Document Type: | ZIB-Report |
Tag: | STP; Signaling network; computations; integer programming; load-balancing |
MSC-Classification: | 90-XX OPERATIONS RESEARCH, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING / 90Bxx Operations research and management science / 90B18 Communication networks [See also 68M10, 94A05] |
90-XX OPERATIONS RESEARCH, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING / 90Cxx Mathematical programming [See also 49Mxx, 65Kxx] / 90C10 Integer programming | |
90-XX OPERATIONS RESEARCH, MATHEMATICAL PROGRAMMING / 90Cxx Mathematical programming [See also 49Mxx, 65Kxx] / 90C90 Applications of mathematical programming | |
Date of first Publication: | 2002/12/19 |
Series (Serial Number): | ZIB-Report (02-50) |
ZIB-Reportnumber: | 02-50 |