An ATM switch capacity allocation problem

In this paper, we consider a capacity allocation problem arising in the context of deploying asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks. Given types of ATM switches, the problem is to find an optimal allocation of capacity such that the total cost of installed switch modules is minimized, while satisfying all traffic demands. We formulate the problem as an integer programming model, which can be conceptualized as a generalized bin packing problem with capacity constraints. We then develop a surrogate constraint technique of the formulation for enhancing the representation of the model. Guided by the tight lower bound of the surrogate relaxation, we devise an effective tabu search heuristic that provides good quality solutions with guaranteed optimality. We present promising computational results that show the viability of the proposed heuristic and lower bounding methods, and that provide insights into implementation for configuring ATM switch in practice.