An optimal shortest-path routing policy for network computers with regular mesh-connected topologies

A probabilistic routing policy, the Z² (zigzag) routing policy, is presented within the class of nonadaptive, shortest-path routing policies for regular mesh-connected topologies such as n-dimensional toroids and hypercubes. The focus of the research is routing in networks of computers in a distributed computing environment, where constituent subcomputers are organized in a mesh-connected topology and communication among individual computers takes places by some form of message exchange. The authors prove the optimality of this policy with respect to two criteria: (1) maximizing the probability of reaching the destination from a given source without delays at intermediate nodes; and (2) minimizing the expected lifetime of a message