Approximability of Robust Network Design: The Directed Case

We consider robust network design problems where an uncertain traffic vector belonging to a polytope has to be dynamically routed to minimize either the network congestion or some linear reservation cost. We focus on the variant in which the underlying graph is directed. We prove that an O(^√k) = O(n)-approximation can be obtained by solving the problem under static routing, where k is the number of commodities and n is the number of nodes. This improves previous results of Hajiaghayi et al. [SODA’2005] and matches the Ω(n) lower bound of Ene et al. [STOC’2016] and the Ω(^√k) lower bound of Azar et al. [STOC’2003]. Finally, we introduce a slightly more general problem version where some flow restrictions can be added. We show that it cannot be approximated c c within a ratio of klog log ^k (resp. n^log log ⁿ) for some constant c. Making use of a weaker complexity assumption, we prove that there is no approximation within a factor of 2^{log1-ϵ k} (resp. 2^{log1-ϵ n}) for any ϵ > 0.