Incorporating the Points of Presence within the Two-Level Topological Network Design Problem

In this paper, we propose to tackle the topological design problem of two-level networks including the design of the points of presence. The problem consists in selecting the number of routers and their types to install in each point of presence, selecting the interface card types to install in each router, finding the access and backbone networks and finally, interconnecting the co-located routers in each point of presence. Instead of partitioning the problem into subproblems and solving them successively, we propose a mathematical programming model that addresses it as a whole. Finally, we present a detailed network design example