Differential Capacity p-Cycles: A p-Cycle variant with increased capacity efficiency

In this paper we introduce the concept of differential capacity p-cycles as an enhancement to span protecting p-cycles. DC cycles provide increased capacity efficiency by reducing the amount of spare capacity that needs to be reserved on each link of a cycle. Our results show a small reduction in spare capacity requirement over traditional p-cycles. We also present a joint spare and working capacity allocation formulation that gives further improved capacity efficiency at the cost of a more complicated ILP. Results of ILP formulations of DC p-cycles are compared to regular p-cycles.