Virtual backup network for broadband network restoration

Survivability is one of the important issues in broadband networks, since even a single network element failure may cause a serious amount of data loss. There have been two main approaches for connection restoration: dynamic approach and backup approach. We discuss the trade-offs between the two approaches and propose a new restoration mechanism that centers around the concept of the virtual backup network, which provides backup path sharing as well as spare bandwidth sharing. The proposed mechanism can take advantage of the two existing approaches together with special interests in resource efficiency and routing flexibility