Designing Two-Level IP Networks Including the Points of Presence

In this paper, we propose a heuristic algorithm based on the tabu search principle for the topological design problem of two-level Internet protocol (IP) networks including the design of the points of presence. This global problem consists in selecting the number of routers and their types to install in each point of presence, selecting the interface card types to install in each router, finding the access and backbone networks and finally, interconnecting the co-located routers in each point of presence. The numerical results show that "good" solutions can be found rapidly with the proposed approach.