A dynamic fault-tolerant message routing algorithm for double-loop networks

Message routing is a fundamental function of a network, and fault-tolerance is an important tool to ensure the quality of service of a network. Assume that the network contains at most one faulty element and the algorithm does not know the faulty element in advance. We present an optimal fault-tolerant message routing algorithm for double-loop networks. We show that sending at most two messages with different routing strategies can ensure that one of the messages will be sent through a shortest path that avoids the faulty element. At each vertex, for any destination, the algorithm needs only constant time and space to determine the next vertex to which the message is to be sent. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.