An Exploration of Exact Methods for Effective Network Failure Detection and Diagnosis
Auguste Burlats , Pierre Schaus and Cristel Pelsser
Abstract
In computer networks, swift recovery from failures requires prompt detection and diagnosis. Protocols such as Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) exists to probe the liveliness of a path and endpoint. These protocols are run on specific nodes that are designated as network monitors. Monitors are responsible for continuously verifying the viability of communication paths. It is important to carefully select monitors as monitoring incurs a cost, necessitating finding a balance between the number of monitor nodes and the monitoring quality. Here, we examine two monitoring challenges from the Boolean network tomography research field: coverage, which involves detecting failures, and 1-identifiability, which additionally requires identifying the failing link or node. We show that minimizing the number of monitors while meeting these requirements constitutes NP-complete problems. We present integer linear programming (ILP), constraint programming (CP) and Maximum Satisfiability (MaxSAT) formulations for these problems and compare their performance. Using 625 network topologies, we demonstrate that employing such exact methods can reduce the number of monitors needed compared to the existing state-of-the-art greedy algorithm.
Publication Details
- Publication Type
- Conference Paper
- Publication Date
- May 2024
- Published In
- Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research
- Pages
- 153--169
- Publisher
- Springer Nature Switzerland
- Location
- Cham
- External Link
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-03…
Suggested citation
Auguste Burlats, Pierre Schaus, and Cristel Pelsser. 2024. An Exploration of Exact Methods for Effective Network Failure Detection and Diagnosis. In Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, 153–169.
BibTeX Citation
@inproceedings{Burlats2024,
title = {An Exploration of Exact Methods for Effective Network Failure Detection and Diagnosis},
author = {Burlats, Auguste and Schaus, Pierre and Pelsser, Cristel},
year = 2024,
month = may,
booktitle = {Integration of Constraint Programming, Artificial Intelligence, and Operations Research},
publisher = {Springer Nature Switzerland},
address = {Cham},
pages = {153--169},
isbn = {978-3-031-60597-0},
url = {https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-60597-0_11},
editor = {Dilkina, Bistra},
abstract = {In computer networks, swift recovery from failures requires prompt detection and diagnosis. Protocols such as Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD) exists to probe the liveliness of a path and endpoint. These protocols are run on specific nodes that are designated as network monitors. Monitors are responsible for continuously verifying the viability of communication paths. It is important to carefully select monitors as monitoring incurs a cost, necessitating finding a balance between the number of monitor nodes and the monitoring quality. Here, we examine two monitoring challenges from the Boolean network tomography research field: coverage, which involves detecting failures, and 1-identifiability, which additionally requires identifying the failing link or node. We show that minimizing the number of monitors while meeting these requirements constitutes NP-complete problems. We present integer linear programming (ILP), constraint programming (CP) and Maximum Satisfiability (MaxSAT) formulations for these problems and compare their performance. Using 625 network topologies, we demonstrate that employing such exact methods can reduce the number of monitors needed compared to the existing state-of-the-art greedy algorithm.},
groups = {International Conferences}
}
Related publications
Une exploration de méthodes exactes pour une détection et un diagnostic efficaces des défaillances des réseaux
Alice Burlats, Cristel Pelsser, and Pierre Schaus
Proceedings of the Journées Francophones de Programmation par Contraintes JFPC, 2024
An Exploration of Exact Methods for Effective Network Failure Detection and Diagnosis
Alice Burlats, Cristel Pelsser, and Pierre Schaus
Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Belgian Operational Research Society ORBEL, 2024
Placement optimal de moniteurs dans un réseau pour la tomographie booléenne
Alice Burlats, Pierre Schaus, and Cristel Pelsser
Journées Francophones de Programmation par Contraintes JFPC, 2023
The Forest Behind the Tree: Revealing Hidden Smart Home Communication Patterns
François De Keersmaeker, Rémi Van Boxem, and Cristel Pelsser, et al.
Proceedings of the 33rd IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (ICNP '25), 2025