An approximation algorithm for weak vertex cover problem in IP network traffic measurement

In order to plan the network construction reasonable and ensure the quality of network service, it is important to measure the Link-bandwidth utilization and get the flow information. One of the methods to monitor network efficiently is based on flow-conservation, and the problem of searching a solution for this method could be deduced to solving weak vertex cover problem, which has been proved NP-hard. So finding an optimum solution for weak vertex cover problem is critical for the network measurement based on flow-conservation. In this paper, we proposed a method using topology matrix to represent the topology graph information and remove the redundant nodes through back tracing the result node set. This method can get a better solution than general greedy algorithm. An example and emulation have been provided to exemplify this method.