Applying tabu search to backup path planning for multicast networks

More and more multimedia applications rely on the ability of networks to provide multicast communications. Network survivability becomes a critical issue in network planning, design, and operation to reduce the impacts of failures in high-speed networks. A rapid and cost-effective restorable network must be planned to maintain network survivability and use network bandwidth effectively. This paper considers the problem of preplanning delay-constrained backup path for multicast networks to minimize the total cost of all the backup paths. Based on the path restoration scheme, a tabu search (TS) algorithm is proposed to find a near optimal solution for the problem under investigation. Diversification and intensification strategies are suggested. The computational experiments are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed TS algorithm. The results show that it offers high-quality solutions within a short amount of time.