Fast Network Self-Healing Mechanism for Distance Vector Routing Protocol

Abstract

The distance vector routing protocol is not able to deal with network failures effectively, which results a significant forwarding discontinuity after a failure. In order to improve the failure resiliency without jeopardizing routing stability, a fast network self-healing mechanism for the distance vector routing protocol (FS-DVP) is proposed. The new mechanism uses a reactive failure recovery strategy. Every node prepares multiple feasible next hops per destination. When nodes find the next hops unreachable, they will choose the best next hops from the set of backup next hops to forwarding data. Furthermore, FS-DVP uses the stability-based triggered routing update mechanism in the suppression of its failure notification for providing better stability for network. Finally, FS-DVP is applied to Routing Information Protocol (RIP), and the simulation performance show that it can effectively deal with the simultaneous failures of multiple arbitrary links and improve stability and availability of networks.