A Scenario Based Framework for Robust Network Provisioning

Traditional approaches to network provisioning assume availability of the reliable estimates for the expected demands. This assumption, however, oversimplifies many practical situations when some incomplete information on the expected demands is available, and proper utilization of this information may improve the network performance. In a case of traffic engineering the uncertainty in the expected demands may be a result of unexpected and sudden changes in the demand pattern when difficulty of determining the varying demand pattern and possible undesirable transient effects make continuous adjustment of the routing algorithm to varying demands difficult. Assuming that some incomplete information on the future demand is available, this paper proposes a framework for network provisioning by balancing risks of under and over provisioning of the network.