A Routing Procedure for the TIDAS Message-Switching Network

In this paper an investigation of some routing methods suitable for a special computer communication network called TIDAS-T, in which the traffic exchange is done according to the store and forward message-switching technique, is elucidated. The properties of different routing procedures and sensitivity of some parameter settings during the various conditions, that may occur in this network, have been studied by simulations with a specially made model for the TIDAS-T computer network. It has turned out that due to the requirements for TIDAS the best routing procedure is a one-parametric adaptive method, which has built-in instruments to adapt to the different situations that can arise in the net, for instance, when line and/or node errors occur. This procedure is in principal similar to the one used in the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) net. However, some extensions and added features, such as the introduction of the concepts split horizon, immediate updating mode and skipping constant, have given the procedure more power to react on complex net errors and to reduce circulating traffic. The method is in principal quite general and will therefore be suitable for many other message-switching computer networks. However, the parameter settings in the procedure are specially tuned for this network by simulation runs.