Hierarchical network routing

Abstract

A disadvantage of Link State routing schemes is that exact shortest path calculations require a complete topology, which can overload the capacity of small nodes in a large network. Area routing schemes (when destination names are structured corresponding to the network topology) allow nodes to reduce the size of routing tables, by recording only one entry for an entire region rather than one for each node in the region. A description is presented of a general hierarchical routing scheme that allows all nodes to participate in a distributed routing network, using close to optimal paths, with short routing tables, and a reduction of topology information for minor nodes.<>