A hierarchical network model for network topology design using genetic algorithm

Network topology design has directly impact on network construction costs and network performance. Majority of current network topology design take the network physical topology parameters into consideration, such as the reliability and cost constraints, ignoring the actual traffic information on the logical network. Moreover, the network traffic exhibits self-similar feature over large time scales, which is complicated and is difficult to predict. In this paper, firstly, a hierarchical network model is proposed that consists of the upper logical topology and the lower physical topology. The logical topology describes the self-similar traffic information on the network and the ON/OFF model is adopted to model the self-similar traffic. The lower physical topology represents the connection relationship between the all kinds of network devices and links. Then, taking advantage of the hierarchical network model, a novel network topology design method based on the genetic algorithm is proposed, which aimed at obtaining the network with minimum delay under certain reliability and cost constraints. Finally, a practical example is presented to verify the effectiveness and the accuracy of our network topology design method. Results show that our method obtains better results than the other methods.