Load Balancing in Signaling Transfer Points
| 02-50 | Andreas Eisenblätter, Arie M.C.A. Koster, Randolf Wallbaum, Roland Wessäly
Load Balancing in Signaling Transfer Points | |
Abstract: Signaling is crucial to the operation of modern telecommunication
networks. A breakdown in the signaling infrastructure typically causes customer
service failures, incurs revenue losses, and hampers the company image. Therefore,
the signaling network has to be highest reliability and survivability. This in particular
holds for the routers in such a network, called signaling transfer points
(STPs).
The robustness of an STP can be improved by equally distributing the load over the
internal processing units. Several constraints have to be taken into account. The
load of the links connected to a processing unit changes over time introducing an
imbalance of the load.
In this paper, we show how integer linear programming can be applied to reduce the
imbalance within an STP, while keeping the number of changes small. Two alternative
models are presented. Computational experiments validate the integer programming
approach in practice. The GSM network operator E-Plus saves substantial amounts
of time and money by employing the proposed approach.
Keywords: Signaling network,
STP,
load-balancing,
integer programming,
computations
MSC: 90B18, 90C90, 90C10