Fast recovery from link failures using resilient routing layers

We present a novel scheme for network recovery, named resilient routing layers (RRL). Our proposed scheme is based on calculating fully connected topology subsets, termed layers, which are used to forward traffic in case of a network failure. For the purpose of this work, the layers are created to protect against link failures only. RRL keeps pre-calculated backup routing information in the network stations. This allows local response to network failures, which gives recovery in the order of milliseconds. The main strengths of our approach are its flexibility, as it is independent of the network technology used, and its simplicity, as it offers the network operator a simple and coherent view of the resources available after a link failure. We also show that our scheme scales well for networks of several hundred nodes.