The Perspective of Multipath Routing

Multipath routing means using multiple paths instead of using single path to forward the traffic, through the network between source node to destination node. Multipath routing provides better overall network performance by allowing maximum utilization of available network resources. If multiple paths are being used for the transmission of the traffic then the traffic will be redirected to the backup path if active path fails or in the case of congestion. Moreover, the multiple paths can be used simultaneously by distributing the traffic. Thus Multipath routing can be more efficient than the single path routing for improving network utilization and for providing load balancing. It can significantly reduce congestion and gives more network throughput and hence increases the reliability in the network. The two main concerns to implement multipath routing scheme are the calculation of multiple paths and traffic distribution among multiple paths. There are various algorithms presented in literature for effectively calculating the multiple paths. In this chapter, we have discussed some multipath routing approaches considering path construction and path selection to distribute the flow.