A Fast Rerouting Approach to Reduce Packet Loss during IP Routing Protocols Convergence

The link state routing protocols of IP networks, when facing a failure, are reactive approaches and are not able to immediately obtain a new route in due time. They take from hundreds of milliseconds until tens of seconds in order to converge. This period generates instability, especially in high speed networks, causing erroneous forwarding processes and high packet loss rates. This study describes a proactive fast rerouting approach named Fast Emergency Paths, which aims at aiding IP routing protocols to bypass failures. An evaluation of these recovery paths was conducted. Results show that these paths are shorter than the other 100% single-failure recovery approaches and use less extra information added to the forwarding information base per router.