Shortest paths in stochastic networks

This paper discusses the sensitivity of network flows to uncertain link state information for various routing protocols. We show that the choice of probability distribution for the link metrics for a given network can have markedly different effects on the probabilities of path selection. Exact results are obtained for these probabilities but their computation is NP-hard. We provide simulation results for three networks to illustrate the sensitivity of shortest paths to different link metric distributions. We provide results for mean path costs and the k-shortest path algorithm as a comparison.