Topology-aware algorithms for large-scale communication

When designing communication protocols there is always a tradeoff between generality and performance. This chapter reports one approach to achieve right balance between these two aspects, using a network model that can be applied to the majority of existing large-scale networks based on reliable high-speed local-area networks interconnected by slower long-haul connections. The approach consists in making visible relevant topological aspects of the uderlying network infrastructure to the protocol designer, and is illustrated by several algorithms that use topology information to achieve improved performance. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000.