Link Failure Recovery over Very Large Arbitrary Networks: The Case of Coding

Abstract: Network coding-based link failure recovery techniques provide near-hitless recovery and offer high capacity efficiency. Diversity coding is the first technique to incorporate coding in this field and is easy to implement over small arbitrary networks. However, its capacity efficiency is restricted by its systematic coding and high design complexity even though its design complexity is lower than the other coding-based recovery techniques. Alternative techniques mitigate some of these limitations, but they are difficult to implement over arbitrary networks. In this paper, we propose a simple column generation-based design algorithm and a novel advanced diversity coding technique to achieve near-hitless recovery over arbitrary networks. The design framework consists of two parts: a main problem and subproblem. Main problem is realized with Linear Programming (LP) and Integer Linear Programming (ILP), whereas the subproblem can be realized with different methods. The simulation results suggest that both the novel coding structure and the novel design algorithm lead to higher capacity efficiency for near-hitless recovery. The novel design algorithm simplifies the capacity placement problem which enables implementing diversity coding-based techniques on very large arbitrary networks.