The University of British Columbia

Guaranteed services in the computer network often require a single reserved path, which easily suffers from single link failures. This paper introduces a backup path computation algorithm, TP, which is intended to compute unreserved backup paths to overcome a single link failure in the network. Simulations are performed to compare TP to other known unreserved backup path computation algorithms. In addition, tests are also done to determine how unreserved backup paths should be used to obtain the best results. The results show that TP backup paths have comparable performance to those of known methods, and that unreserved backup paths as a solution can provide good recovery from a link failure. For the best performance, unreserved backup paths should be paired with strict recovery in light network loads, and they should be paired with relaxed recovery in heavy network loads.