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Showing papers on "Destination-Sequenced Distance Vector routing published in 2000"


Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 Aug 2000
TL;DR: Two techniques that improve throughput in an ad hoc network in the presence of nodes that agree to forward packets but fail to do so are described, using a watchdog that identifies misbehaving nodes and a pathrater that helps routing protocols avoid these nodes.
Abstract: This paper describes two techniques that improve throughput in an ad hoc network in the presence of nodes that agree to forward packets but fail to do so. To mitigate this problem, we propose categorizing nodes based upon their dynamically measured behavior. We use a watchdog that identifies misbehaving nodes and a pathrater that helps routing protocols avoid these nodes. Through simulation we evaluate watchdog and pathrater using packet throughput, percentage of overhead (routing) transmissions, and the accuracy of misbehaving node detection. When used together in a network with moderate mobility, the two techniques increase throughput by 17% in the presence of 40% misbehaving nodes, while increasing the percentage of overhead transmissions from the standard routing protocol's 9% to 17%. During extreme mobility, watchdog and pathrater can increase network throughput by 27%, while increasing the overhead transmissions from the standard routing protocol's 12% to 24%.

3,747 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
26 Mar 2000
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that even though DSR and AODV share a similar on-demand behavior the differences in the protocol mechanics can lead to significant performance differentials.
Abstract: Ad hoc networks are characterized by multi-hop wireless connectivity, frequently changing network topology and the need for efficient dynamic routing protocols. We compare the performance of two prominent on-demand routing protocols for mobile ad hoc networks - dynamic source routing (DSR) and ad hoc on-demand distance vector routing (AODV). A detailed simulation model with MAC and physical layer models is used to study inter-layer interactions and their performance implications. We demonstrate that even though DSR and AODV share a similar on-demand behavior the differences in the protocol mechanics can lead to significant performance differentials. The performance differentials are analyzed using varying network load, mobility and network size. Based on the observations, we make recommendations about how the performance of either protocol can be improved.

1,629 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper suggests an approach to utilize location information (for instance, obtained using the global positioning system) to improve performance of routing protocols for ad hoc networks by using location information and presents two algorithms to determine the request zone.
Abstract: A mobile ad hoc network consists of wireless hosts that may move often. Movement of hosts results in a change in routes, requiring some mechanism for determining new routes. Several routing protocols have already been proposed for ad hoc networks. This paper suggests an approach to utilize location information (for instance, obtained using the global positioning system) to improve performance of routing protocols for ad hoc networks. By using location information, the proposed Location‐Aided Routing (LAR) protocols limit the search for a new route to a smaller “request zone” of the ad hoc network. This results in a significant reduction in the number of routing messages. We present two algorithms to determine the request zone, and also suggest potential optimizations to our algorithms.

1,181 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Simulation results show that the even adaptiveness provided by the odd-even turn model makes message routing less vulnerable to nonuniform factors such as hot spot traffic and results in a smaller fluctuation of the network performance with respect to different traffic patterns.
Abstract: This paper presents a model for designing adaptive wormhole routing algorithms for meshes without virtual channels. The model restricts the locations where some turns can be taken so that deadlock is avoided. In comparison with previous methods, the degree of routing adaptiveness provided by the model is more even for different source-destination pairs. The mesh network may benefit from this feature in terms of communication efficiency. Simulation results show that the even adaptiveness provided by the odd-even turn model makes message routing less vulnerable to nonuniform factors such as hot spot traffic. In addition, this property results in a smaller fluctuation of the network performance with respect to different traffic patterns.

844 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
23 Sep 2000
TL;DR: This work proposes a scheme to improve existing on-demand routing protocols by creating a mesh and providing multiple alternate routes to the Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector protocol and evaluates the performance improvements by simulation.
Abstract: Nodes in mobile ad hoc networks communicate with one another via packet radios on wireless multihop links. Because of node mobility and power limitations, the network topology changes frequently. Routing protocols therefore play an important role in mobile multihop network communications. A trend in ad hoc network routing is the reactive on-demand philosophy where routes are established only when required. Most of the protocols in this category, however, use a single route and do not utilize multiple alternate paths. We propose a scheme to improve existing on-demand routing protocols by creating a mesh and providing multiple alternate routes. Our algorithm establishes the mesh and multipaths without transmitting any extra control message. We apply our scheme to the Ad-hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) protocol and evaluate the performance improvements by simulation.

711 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
18 Jun 2000
TL;DR: FSR introduces the notion of multi-level fisheye scope to reduce routing update overhead in large networks and is presented as a simple, efficient and scalable routing solution in a mobile, ad hoc environment.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel routing protocol for wireless ad hoc networks-fisheye state routing (FSR). FSR introduces the notion of multi-level fisheye scope to reduce routing update overhead in large networks. Nodes exchange link state entries with their neighbors with a frequency which depends on distance to destination. From link state entries, nodes construct the topology map of the entire network and compute optimal routes. Simulation experiments show that FSR is a simple, efficient and scalable routing solution in a mobile, ad hoc environment.

654 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
26 Mar 2000
TL;DR: This paper presents a new algorithm for dynamic routing of bandwidth-guaranteed tunnels when tunnel routing requests arrive one-by-one and there is no a priori knowledge regarding future requests, and shows that this problem is NP-hard.
Abstract: This paper presents a new algorithm for dynamic routing of bandwidth-guaranteed tunnels when tunnel routing requests arrive one-by-one and there is no a priori knowledge regarding future requests. This problem is motivated by service provider needs for fast deployment of bandwidth-guaranteed services and the consequent need in backbone networks for fast provisioning of bandwidth-guaranteed paths. Offline routing algorithms cannot be used since they require a priori knowledge of all tunnel requests that are to be routed. Instead, on-line algorithms that handle requests arriving one-by-one and that satisfy as many potential future demands as possible are needed. The newly developed algorithm is an on-line algorithm and is based on the idea that a newly routed tunnel must follow a route that does not "interfere too much" with a route that may be critical to satisfy a future demand. We show that this problem is NP-hard. We then develop a path selection heuristic that is based on the idea of deferred loading of certain "critical" links. These critical links are identified by the algorithm as links that, if heavily loaded, would make it impossible to satisfy future demands between certain ingress-egress pairs. Like min-hop routing, the presented algorithm uses link-state information and some auxiliary capacity information for path selection. Unlike previous algorithms, the proposed algorithm exploits any available knowledge of the network ingress-egress points of potential future demands even though the demands themselves are unknown.

463 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
20 Nov 2000
TL;DR: Simulation experiments show that LANMAR provides efficient and scalable routing in large, mobile, ad hoc environments in which group mobility applies.
Abstract: In this paper, we present a novel routing protocol for wireless ad hoc networks-landmark ad hoc routing (LANMAR). LANMAR combines the features of fisheye state routing (FSR) and landmark routing. The key novelty is the use of landmarks for each set of nodes which move as a group (e.g., a team of co-workers at a convention or a tank battalion in the battlefield) in order to reduce routing update overhead. Like in FSR, nodes exchange link state only with their neighbors. Routes within the fisheye scope are accurate, while routes to remote groups of nodes are "summarized" by the corresponding landmarks. A packet directed to a remote destination initially aims at the landmark; as a gets closer to the destination it eventually switches to the accurate route provided by fisheye. Simulation experiments show that LANMAR provides efficient and scalable routing in large, mobile, ad hoc environments in which group mobility applies.

406 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 May 2000
TL;DR: This work defines a new power-cost metric based on the combination of both node's lifetime and distance based power metrics and proposes power, cost, and power- cost GPS based localized routing algorithms, where nodes make routing decisions solely on the basis of location of their neighbors and destination.
Abstract: Two metrics where transmission power depends on distance between nodes, and a cost aware metric based on remaining battery power at nodes (assuming constant transmission power), together with corresponding non-localized shortest path routing algorithms, were recently proposed. We define a new power-cost metric based on the combination of both node's lifetime and distance based power metrics. We then propose power, cost, and power-cost GPS based localized routing algorithms, where nodes make routing decisions solely on the basis of location of their neighbors and destination. Power aware localized routing algorithm attempts to minimize the total power needed to route a message between a source and a destination. Cost-aware localized algorithm is aimed at extending battery's worst case lifetime. The combined power-cost algorithm attempts to minimize the total power needed and to avoid nodes with short remaining lifetime. We prove that these localized power, cost, and power-cost efficient routing algorithms are loop-free.

383 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 Aug 2000
TL;DR: Two new leader election algorithms for mobile ad hoc networks that ensure that eventually each connected component of the topology graph has exactly one leader are presented.
Abstract: We present two new leader election algorithms for mobile ad hoc networks. The algorithms ensure that eventually each connected component of the topology graph has exactly one leader. The algorithms are based on a routing algorithm called TORA [5], which in turn is based on an algorithm by Gafni and Bertsekas [3]. The algorithm require nodes to communicate with only their current neighbors, making it well suited to the ad hoc environment. The first algorithm is for a single topology change and is provided with a proof of correctness. The second algorithm tolerates multiple concurrent topology changes.

369 citations


Proceedings ArticleDOI
01 Aug 2000
TL;DR: A set of new mobility metrics are defined that allow accurate characterization of the relative difficulty that a given movement scenario presents to an ad hoc network routing protocol, and each mobility metric's ability to predict the actual difficulty in terms of routing overhead experienced by the routing protocol across the scenarios in this study is analyzed.
Abstract: An on-demand routing protocol for wireless and hoc networks is one that searches for and attempts to discover a route to some destination node only when a sending node originates a data packet addressed to that node. In order to avoid the need for such a route discovery to be performed before each data packet is sent, such routing protocols must cache routes previously discovered. This paper presents an analysis of the effects of different design choices for this caching in on-demand routing protocols in wireless ad hoc networks, dividing the problem into choices of cache structure, cache capacity, and cache timeout. Our analysis is based on the Dynamic Source Routing protocol (DSR), which operates entirely on-demand. Using detailed simulations of wireless ad hoc networks of 50 mobile nodes, we studied a large number of different caching algorithms that utilize a range of design choices, and simulated each cache primarily over a set of 50 different movement scenarios drawn from 5 different types of mobility models. We also define a set of new mobility metrics that allow accurate characterization of the relative difficulty that a given movement scenario presents to an ad hoc network routing protocol, and we analyze each mobility metric's ability to predict the actual difficulty in terms of routing overhead experienced by the routing protocol across the scenarios in our study.


01 Jan 2000
TL;DR: FSR introduces the notion of multi-level fisheye scope to reduce routing update overhead in large networks and is shown to be simple, efficient and scalable in a mobile, ad hoc environment.
Abstract: In this paper, we present a novel routing protocol for wireless ad hoc networks – Fisheye State Routing (FSR). FSR introduces the notion of multi-level fisheye scope to reduce routing update overhead in large networks. Nodes exchange link state entries with their neighbors with a frequency which depends on distance to destination. From link state entries, nodes construct the topology map of the entire network and compute optimal routes. Simulation experiments show that FSR is simple, efficient and scalable routing solution in a mobile, ad hoc environment.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
26 Mar 2000
TL;DR: It is shown that a partial information scenario which uses only aggregated and not per-path information provides sufficient information for a suitably developed algorithm to be able to perform almost as well as the complete information scenario.
Abstract: This paper presents new algorithms for dynamic routing of restorable bandwidth-guaranteed paths. A straightforward solution for the restoration problem is to find two disjoint paths. However, this results in excessive resource usage for backup paths and does not satisfy the implicit service provider requirement of optimizing network resource utilization so as to increase the number of potential future demands that can be routed. We give an integer programming formulation for this problem which is new. Complete path routing knowledge is a reasonable assumption for a centralized routing algorithm. However, it requires maintenance of non-aggregated or per-path information which is not often desirable particularly when distributed routing is preferred. We show that a partial information scenario which uses only aggregated and not per-path information provides sufficient information for a suitably developed algorithm to be able to perform almost as well as the complete information scenario. In this partial information scenario the routing algorithm only knows what fraction of each link's bandwidth, is currently used by active paths, and is currently used by backup paths. Obtaining this information is feasible using proposed traffic engineering extensions to routing protocols. We formulate the dynamic restorable bandwidth routing problem in this partial information scenario and develop efficient routing algorithms. We compare there routing performance of this algorithm to a bound obtained using complete information. Our partial information-based algorithm performs very well and its performance in terms of the number of rejected requests is very close to the full information bound.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
07 May 2000
TL;DR: A new multipath routing protocol for ad hoc wireless networks-multipath source routing (MSR), which is based on DSR (dynamic source routing), which improves the throughput of TCP and UDP and the packet delivery ratio, and reduces the end-to-end delay and the queue size while adding little overhead.
Abstract: We propose a new multipath routing protocol for ad hoc wireless networks-multipath source routing (MSR), which is based on DSR (dynamic source routing). MSR extends DSR's route discovery and route maintenance mechanism to deal with multipath routing. Based on the measurement of RTT, we propose a scheme to distribute load between multiple paths. The simulation results show that our approach improves the throughput of TCP and UDP and the packet delivery ratio, and reduces the end-to-end delay and the queue size, while adding little overhead. As a result, MSR decreases the network congestion quite well.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is observed that the new generation of on‐demand routing protocols use much lower routing load, especially with small number of peer‐to‐peer conversations, however, the traditional link state and distance vector protocols provide, in general, better packet delivery and end‐to-end delay performance.
Abstract: In this paper we evaluate several routing protocols for mobile, wireless, ad hoc networks via packetdlevel simulations. The ad hoc networks are multidhop wireless networks with dynamically changing network connectivity owing to mobility. The protocol suite includes several routing protocols specifically designed for ad hoc routing, as well as more traditional protocols, such as link state and distance vector, used for dynamic networks. Performance is evaluated with respect to fraction of packets delivered, enddtodend delay, and routing load for a given traffic and mobility model. Both small l30 nodesr and medium sized l60 nodesr networks are used. It is observed that the new generation of onddemand routing protocols use much lower routing load, especially with small number of peerdtodpeer conversations. However, the traditional link state and distance vector protocols provide, in general, better packet delivery and enddtodend delay performance.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
23 Sep 2000
TL;DR: This paper details many of the changes that were necessary during the development of the implementation of the Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector routing protocol in the Linux operating system.
Abstract: The Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV) routing protocol is designed for use in ad hoc mobile networks. Because of the difficulty of testing an ad hoc routing protocol in a real-world environment, a simulation was first created so that the protocol design could be tested in a variety of scenarios. Once simulation of the protocol was nearly complete, the simulation was used as the basis for an implementation in the Linux operating system. In the course of converting the simulation into an implementation, certain modifications were needed in AODV and the Linux kernel due to both simplifications made in the simulation of AODV and to incompatibilities of the Linux kernel and the IP-layer to routing in a mobile environment. This paper details many of the changes that were necessary during the development of the implementation.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The suitability of the emerging "eld of neuro-dynamic programming (NDP) in providing approximate solutions to this di$cult stochastic combinatorial optimization problem is studied.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
23 Sep 2000
TL;DR: This paper presents on-demand routing scalability improvements achieved using a "passive" clustering protocol scheme which is mostly supported/maintained by user data packets instead of explicit control packets, consistent with the on- demand routing philosophy.
Abstract: This paper presents on-demand routing scalability improvements achieved using a "passive" clustering. Any on-demand routing typically requires some form of flooding. Clustering can dramatically reduce transmission overhead during flooding. In fact, by using clustering, we restrict the set of forwarding nodes during flood search and thus reduce the energy cost and traffic overhead of routing in dynamic traffic and topology environments. However existing "active" clustering mechanisms require periodic refresh of neighborhood information and tend to introduce quite a large amount of communication maintenance overhead. We introduce a passive clustering protocol scheme which is mostly supported/maintained by user data packets instead of explicit control packets. The passive scheme is consistent with the on-demand routing philosophy. Simulation results show significant performance improvements when passive clustering is used.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
29 Aug 2000
TL;DR: A performance comparison of the DSR, AODV, TORA and DSDV routing protocols with respect to energy consumption is presented, evaluating how the different approaches and algorithms affect the energy usage in mobile devices.
Abstract: The design of efficient routing protocols is a fundamental problem in a Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET). Many different protocols have been proposed in the literature, each one based on different characteristics and properties. Some of these protocols have been studied and their performances have been evaluated in detail, focusing on aspects such as routing overhead latency and route length. We concentrate on the energy consumption issues of routing protocols. We present a performance comparison of the DSR, AODV, TORA and DSDV routing protocols with respect to energy consumption, evaluating how the different approaches and algorithms affect the energy usage in mobile devices.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A new QoS routing algorithm, called the Tunable Accuracy Multiple Constraints Routing Algorithm (TAMCRA), which can solve multiple constraints problems with a finite but small probability ofMissing a path that satisfies all constraints while the probability of missing such a path is tunable with a single parameter k.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
23 Sep 2000
TL;DR: This work considers a routing protocol called the zone routing protocol (ZRP) that has been proposed for wireless ad-hoc networks with bi-directional links and proposes extensions to ZRP to support its deployment when unidirectional links are present.
Abstract: Ad-hoc networks consist of peer-to-peer communicating nodes that are highly mobile. As such, an ad-hoc network lacks infrastructure and the topology of the network changes dynamically. The task of routing data from a source to a destination in such a network is challenging. Several routing protocols have been proposed for wireless ad-hoc networks. Most of these protocols, however, pre-suppose the presence of bi-directional links between the nodes in the network. In reality the ad-hoc network may consist of heterogeneous nodes with different power capabilities and hence, different transmission ranges. When this is the case, a given node might be able to receive the transmission of another given node but might not be able to successfully transmit to the latter. Thus, unidirectional links are formed. Most of the current routing protocols are unsuitable for deployment when such unidirectional links are present. We consider a routing protocol called the zone routing protocol (ZRP) that has been proposed for wireless ad-hoc networks with bi-directional links. The zone routing protocol employs a hybrid proactive (table driven) and reactive (on-demand) methodology to provide scalable routing in the ad-hoc network. However, in the presence of unidirectional links some routes remain undiscovered if ZRP is used. We propose extensions to ZRP to support its deployment when unidirectional links are present. In particular, we propose a query enhancement mechanism that recursively builds partial routes to a destination. Simulation results show that even at a high mobility of 20 m/s, the queries resulting due to the enhancement mechanism result in the computation of valid routes more than 80% of the time. These results are valid even when a large number (40% of nodes have half the transmission range as that of the remaining nodes) of unidirectional links are present in the network.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
20 Nov 2000
TL;DR: DDR provides different mechanisms to drastically reduce routing complexity and improve delay performance, and is infrastructureless in a strong sense: it does not even require a physical location information.
Abstract: This paper presents an alternative simple loop-free bandwidth-efficient distributed routing algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks, denoted as distributed dynamic, routing (DDR). Although DDR benefits from classical concepts like zone and forest, unlike previous solutions it achieves several goals at the same time. Firstly, it provides different mechanisms to drastically reduce routing complexity and improve delay performance. Secondly, it is an infrastructureless in a strong sense: it does not even require a physical location information. Finally, zone naming is performed dynamically and broadcasting is reduced noticeably.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
27 Nov 2000
TL;DR: An enhanced version of the routing protocol, Landmark Ad Hoc Routing (LANMAR), that combines the features of Fisheye State Routing and Landmark routing and features landmark election to cope with the dynamic and mobile environment is presented.
Abstract: We present an enhanced version of the routing protocol, Landmark Ad Hoc Routing (LANMAR). LANMAR combines the features of Fisheye State Routing (FSR) and Landmark routing. The enhanced version features landmark election to cope with the dynamic and mobile environment. Other advantages of LANMAR include the use of landmarks for each logical group (e.g., a team of co-workers at a convention or a tank battalion in the battlefield) in order to reduce routing update overhead in large networks, and the exchanging of neighborhood link state only with neighbors. When the network size grows, remote groups of nodes are "summarized" by the corresponding landmarks. As a result, each node will maintain accurate routing information about immediate neighborhood; at the same time it will keep track of the routing directions to the landmark nodes and thus, to remote groups. Simulation experiments show that the enhanced version suffers some performance degradation at steady state because of election overhead. However, it still provides an efficient and scalable routing solution in a mobile, ad hoc environment. Moreover, the election provides a much needed recovery from landmark failures.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
21 Aug 2000
TL;DR: This is the first localized algorithm that guarantees delivery for (connected) wireless networks modeled by arbitrary graphs, including inaccurate location information, and is also the first paper to apply GPS in QoS routing decisions, and to consider the connection time as a QoS criterion.
Abstract: In a localized routing algorithm, node A currently holding the message forwards it based on the location of itself, its neighboring nodes and destination. We propose to use depth first search (DFS) method for routing decisions. Each node A, upon receiving the message for the first time, sorts all its neighbors according to a criteria such as their distance to destination and uses that order in DFS algorithm. It is the first localized algorithm that guarantees delivery for (connected) wireless networks modeled by arbitrary graphs, including inaccurate location information. We then propose the first localized QoS routing algorithm for wireless networks. It performs DFS routing algorithm after edges with insufficient bandwidth or insufficient connection time are deleted from the graph, and attempts to minimize hop count. This is also the first paper to apply GPS in QoS routing decisions, and to consider the connection time (estimated lifetime of a link) as a QoS criterion. The average length of measured QoS path in our experiments, obtained by DFS method, was between 1 and 1.34 times longer than the length of QoS path obtained by shortest path algorithm. The overhead is considerably reduced by applying the concept of internal nodes.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper describes an efficient transformation of the GVRP into a Capacitated Arc Routing Problem (CARP) for which an exact algorithm and several approximate procedures are reported in literature.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
26 Mar 2000
TL;DR: This work describes virtual capacity-based routing (VCR), a theoretical scheme based on the notion of virtual capacity of a route, and proposes proportional sticky routing (PSR), an easily realizable approximation of VCR, and demonstrates that adaptive proportional routing is indeed a viable alternative to the global QoS routing approach.
Abstract: Most of the QoS routing schemes proposed so far require periodic exchange of QoS state information among routers, imposing both communication overhead on the network and processing overhead on core routers. Furthermore, stale QoS state information causes the performance of these QoS routing schemes to degrade drastically. In order to circumvent these problems, we focus on localized QoS routing schemes where the edge routers make routing decisions using only "local" information and thus reducing the overhead at core routers. We first describe virtual capacity-based routing (VCR), a theoretical scheme based on the notion of virtual capacity of a route. We then propose proportional sticky routing (PSR), an easily realizable approximation of VCR and analyze its performance. We demonstrate through extensive simulations that adaptive proportional routing is indeed a viable alternative to the global QoS routing approach.

Proceedings ArticleDOI
16 Oct 2000
TL;DR: Two protocols are presented that reduce the number of routing packets transmitted during the route discovery by limiting the query flood to a restricted region using directional transmissions.
Abstract: We propose the use of directional antennas for improving the efficiency of on-demand protocols in mobile ad hoc networks. These protocols require that routes are found and maintained reactively, as required to handle the offered traffic. However, the process of searching for a route typically involves a network-wide flood of query packets, which consumes a large portion of the wireless bandwidth. We present two protocols that reduce the number of routing packets transmitted during the route discovery by limiting the query flood to a restricted region using directional transmissions. Performance evaluations of the protocols, obtained from computer simulations, are presented.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that the optimal deterministic routing in stochastic event graphs is such a sequence, where each letter is distributed as "evenly" as possible and appears with a given rate.
Abstract: The objective pursued in this paper is two-fold. The first part addresses the following combinatorial problem: is it possible to construct an infinite sequence over n letters where each letter is distributed as “evenly” as possible and appears with a given rate? The second objective of the paper is to use this construction in the framework of optimal routing in queuing networks. We show under rather general assumptions that the optimal deterministic routing in stochastic event graphs is such a sequence.

Patent
22 Dec 2000
TL;DR: In this paper, a flexible routing node for re-directing signaling messages in a communications network is disclosed, which can be accomplished through the use of a range or block based database in conjunction with an exception-based database.
Abstract: A flexible routing node for re-directing signaling messages in a communications network is disclosed. Re-direction or re-routing of signaling message packets is accomplished through the use of a range or block based database in conjunction with an exception-based database. The range-based routing instruction databases incorporate a data structure that maps ranges or blocks of mobile identification numbers (MINs) to a single destination network address, while the exceptions database stores any exceptions to these range or block-based rules. The pair of routing databases is implemented such that, when a signaling message is received that requires re-direction, the exception-based database is queried first. If a match is found in the exceptions database, the signaling message is modified using the returned routing instructions and transmitted into an associated communication network. If no match is found in the exception-based database, a default query is performed against the range-based database. The signaling message is then modified using the routing instructions returned by the range-based database and transmitted into an associated communication network.