Interdomain routing and games

Hagay Levin (), Michael Schapira and Aviv Zohar

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We present a game-theoretic model that captures many of the intricacies of \emph{interdomain routing} in today's Internet. In this model, the strategic agents are source nodes located on a network, who aim to send traffic to a unique destination node. The interaction between the agents is dynamic and complex -- asynchronous, sequential, and based on partial information. Best-reply dynamics in this model capture crucial aspects of the only interdomain routing protocol de facto, namely the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). We study complexity and incentive-related issues in this model. Our main results are showing that in realistic and well-studied settings, BGP is incentive-compatible. I.e., not only does myopic behaviour of all players \emph{converge} to a ``stable'' routing outcome, but no player has motivation to unilaterally deviate from the protocol. Moreover, we show that even \emph{coalitions} of players of \emph{any} size cannot improve their routing outcomes by collaborating. Unlike the vast majority of works in mechanism design, our results do not require any monetary transfers (to or by the agents).

Keywords: Interdomain Routing; Network Games; BGP protocol (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D7 D8 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-01-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gth
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