In the Survivable Network Design problem (SNDP), we are given an undirected graph $G(V,E)$ with costs on edges, along with a connectivity requirement $r(u,v)$ for each pair $u,v$ of vertices. The goal is to find a minimum-cost subset $E^*$ of edges, that satisfies the given set of pairwise connectivity requirements. In the edge-connectivity version we need to ensure that there are $r(u,v)$ edge-disjoint paths for every pair $u, v$ of vertices, while in the vertex-connectivity version the paths are required to be vertex-disjoint. The edge-connectivity version of SNDP is known to have a 2-approximation. However, no non-trivial approximation algorithm has been known so far for the vertex version of SNDP, except for special cases of the problem. We present an extremely simple algorithm to achieve an $O(k^3 \log n)$-approximation for this problem, where $k$ denotes the maximum connectivity requirement, and $n$ denotes the number of vertices. We also give a simple proof of the recently discovered $O(k^2 \log n)$-approximation result for the single-source version of vertex-connectivity SNDP. We note that in both cases, our analysis in fact yields slightly better guarantees in that the $\log n$ term in the approximation guarantee can be replaced with a $\log τ$ term where $τ$ denotes the number of distinct vertices that participate in one or more pairs with a positive connectivity requirement.
In this note we consider the survivable network design problem (SNDP) in undirected graphs. We make two contributions. The first is a new counting argument in the iterated rounding based 2-approximation for edge-connectivity SNDP (EC-SNDP) originally due to Jain. The second is to make some additional connections between hypergraphic version of SNDP introduced by Zhao, Nagamochi and Ibaraki and edge and node-weighted versions of EC-SNDP and element-connectivity SNDP (Elem-SNDP). One useful consequence of this connection is a 2-approximation for Elem-SNDP that avoids the use of set-pair based re…
Consider the following problem: given a graph with edge costs and a subset Q of vertices, find a minimum-cost subgraph in which there are two edge-disjoint paths connecting every pair of vertices in Q. The problem is a failure-resilient analog of the Steiner tree problem arising, for example, in telecommunications applications. We study a more general mixed-connectivity formulation, also employed in telecommunications optimization. Given a number (or requirement) r(v) in {0, 1, 2} for each vertex v in the graph, find a minimum-cost subgraph in which there are min{r(u), r(v)} edge-disjoint u-to…
Flexible graph connectivity is a new network design model introduced by Adjiashvili. It has seen several recent algorithmic advances. Despite these, the approximability even in the setting of a single-pair $(s,t)$ is poorly understood. In our recent work, we raised the question of whether there is poly-logarithmic approximation for the survivable network design version (Flex-SNDP) when the connectivity requirements are fixed constants. In this paper, we adapt a powerful framework for survivable network design recently developed by Chen, Laekhanukit, Liao, and Zhang to give an affirmative answe…
In the classical survivable network design problem (SNDP), we are given an undirected graph $G=(V,E)$ with costs on edges and a connectivity requirement $k(s,t)$ for each pair of vertices. The goal is to find a minimum-cost subgraph $H\subseteq V$ such that every pair $(s,t)$ are connected by $k(s,t)$ edge or (openly) vertex disjoint paths, abbreviated as EC-SNDP and VC-SNDP, respectively. The seminal result of Jain [FOCS'98, Combinatorica'01] gives a $2$-approximation algorithm for EC-SNDP, and a decade later, an $O(k^3\log n)$-approximation algorithm for VC-SNDP, where $k$ is the largest con…
In Source Location (SL) problems the goal is to select a mini-mum cost source set $S \subseteq V$ such that the connectivity (or flow) $ψ(S,v)$ from $S$ to any node $v$ is at least the demand $d_v$ of $v$. In many SL problems $ψ(S,v)=d_v$ if $v \in S$, namely, the demand of nodes selected to $S$ is completely satisfied. In a node-connectivity variant suggested recently by Fukunaga, every node $v$ gets a "bonus" $p_v \leq d_v$ if it is selected to $S$. Fukunaga showed that for undirected graphs one can achieve ratio $O(k \ln k)$ for his variant, where $k=\max_{v \in V}d_v$ is the maximum demand…
For the well-known Survivable Network Design Problem (SNDP) we are given an undirected graph $G$ with edge costs, a set $R$ of terminal vertices, and an integer demand $d_{s,t}$ for every terminal pair $s,t\in R$. The task is to compute a subgraph $H$ of $G$ of minimum cost, such that there are at least $d_{s,t}$ disjoint paths between $s$ and $t$ in $H$. If the paths are required to be edge-disjoint we obtain the edge-connectivity variant (EC-SNDP), while internally vertex-disjoint paths result in the vertex-connectivity variant (VC-SNDP). Another important case is the element-connectivity va…
One of the most important and well-studied settings for network design is edge-connectivity requirements. This encompasses uniform demands such as the Minimum $k$-Edge-Connected Spanning Subgraph problem ($k$-ECSS), as well as nonuniform demands such as the Survivable Network Design problem. A weakness of these formulations, though, is that we are not able to ask for fault-tolerance larger than the connectivity. We introduce and study new variants of these problems under a notion of relative fault-tolerance. Informally, we require not that two nodes are connected if there are a bounded number …
In a standard $f$-connectivity network design problem, we are given an undirected graph $G=(V,E)$, a cut-requirement function $f:2^V \rightarrow {\mathbb{N}}$, and non-negative costs $c(e)$ for all $e \in E$. We are then asked to find a minimum-cost vector $x \in {\mathbb{N}}^E$ such that $x(δ(S)) \geq f(S)$ for all $S \subseteq V$. We focus on the class of such problems where $f$ is a proper function. This encodes many well-studied NP-hard problems such as the generalized survivable network design problem. In this paper we present the first strongly polynomial time FPTAS for solving the LP re…
In the Group Steiner Tree problem (GST), we are given a (vertex or edge)-weighted graph $G=(V,E)$ on $n$ vertices, a root vertex $r$ and a collection of groups $\{S_i\}_{i\in[h]}: S_i\subseteq V(G)$. The goal is to find a min-cost subgraph $H$ that connects the root to every group. We consider a fault-tolerant variant of GST, which we call Restricted (Rooted) Group SNDP. In this setting, each group $S_i$ has a demand $k_i\in[k],k\in\mathbb N$, and we wish to find a min-cost $H\subseteq G$ such that, for each group $S_i$, there is a vertex in $S_i$ connected to the root via $k_i$ (vertex or edg…
An important open question in the area of vertex sparsification is whether $(1+ε)$-approximate cut-preserving vertex sparsifiers with size close to the number of terminals exist. The work Chalermsook et al. (SODA 2021) introduced a relaxation called connectivity-$c$ mimicking networks, which asks to construct a vertex sparsifier which preserves connectivity among $k$ terminals exactly up to the value of $c$, and showed applications to dynamic connectivity data structures and survivable network design. We show that connectivity-$c$ mimicking networks with $\widetilde{O}(kc^3)$ edges exist and c…
Graph compression or sparsification is a basic information-theoretic and computational question. A major open problem in this research area is whether $(1+ε)$-approximate cut-preserving vertex sparsifiers with size close to the number of terminals exist. As a step towards this goal, we study a thresholded version of the problem: for a given parameter $c$, find a smaller graph, which we call connectivity-$c$ mimicking network, which preserves connectivity among $k$ terminals exactly up to the value of $c$. We show that connectivity-$c$ mimicking networks with $O(kc^4)$ edges exist and can be fo…
The vertex connectivity of an $m$-edge $n$-vertex undirected graph is the smallest number of vertices whose removal disconnects the graph, or leaves only a singleton vertex. In this paper, we give a reduction from the vertex connectivity problem to a set of maxflow instances. Using this reduction, we can solve vertex connectivity in $\tilde O(m^α)$ time for any $α\ge 1$, if there is a $m^α$-time maxflow algorithm. Using the current best maxflow algorithm that runs in $m^{4/3+o(1)}$ time (Kathuria, Liu and Sidford, FOCS 2020), this yields a $m^{4/3+o(1)}$-time vertex connectivity algorithm. Thi…
Given a $k$-vertex-connected graph $G$ and a set $S$ of extra edges (links), the goal of the $k$-vertex-connectivity augmentation problem is to find a set $S' \subseteq S$ of minimum size such that adding $S'$ to $G$ makes it $(k+1)$-vertex-connected. Unlike the edge-connectivity augmentation problem, research for the vertex-connectivity version has been sparse. In this work we present the first polynomial time approximation algorithm that improves the known ratio of 2 for $2$-vertex-connectivity augmentation, for the case in which $G$ is a cycle. This is the first step for attacking the more …
We complement our study of 2-connectivity in directed graphs, by considering the computation of the following 2-vertex-connectivity relations: We say that two vertices v and w are 2-vertex-connected if there are two internally vertex-disjoint paths from v to w and two internally vertex-disjoint paths from w to v. We also say that v and w are vertex-resilient if the removal of any vertex different from v and w leaves v and w in the same strongly connected component. We show how to compute the above relations in linear time so that we can report in constant time if two vertices are 2-vertex-conn…
We give offline algorithms for processing a sequence of $2$ and $3$ edge and vertex connectivity queries in a fully-dynamic undirected graph. While the current best fully-dynamic online data structures for $3$-edge and $3$-vertex connectivity require $O(n^{2/3})$ and $O(n)$ time per update, respectively, our per-operation cost is only $O(\log n)$, optimal due to the dynamic connectivity lower bound of Patrascu and Demaine. Our approach utilizes a divide and conquer scheme that transforms a graph into smaller equivalents that preserve connectivity information. This construction of equivalents i…
We consider the fundamental problems of determining the rooted and global edge and vertex connectivities (and computing the corresponding cuts) in directed graphs. For rooted (and hence also global) edge connectivity with small integer capacities we give a new randomized Monte Carlo algorithm that runs in time $\tilde{O}(n^2)$. For rooted edge connectivity this is the first algorithm to improve on the $Ω(n^3)$ time bound in the dense-graph high-connectivity regime. Our result relies on a simple combination of sampling coupled with sparsification that appears new, and could lead to further trad…
We show the existence of O(f(c)k) sized vertex sparsifiers that preserve all edge-connectivity values up to c between a set of k terminal vertices, where f(c) is a function that only depends on c, the edge-connectivity value. This construction is algorithmic: we also provide an algorithm whose running time depends linearly on k, but exponentially in c. It implies that for constant values of c, an offline sequence of edge insertions/deletions and c-edge-connectivity queries can be answered in polylog time per operation. These results are obtained by combining structural results about minimum te…
Vertex connectivity is a well-studied concept in graph theory with numerous applications. A graph is $k$-connected if it remains connected after removing any $k-1$ vertices. The vertex connectivity of a graph is the maximum $k$ such that the graph is $k$-connected. There is a long history of algorithmic development for efficiently computing vertex connectivity. Recently, two near linear-time algorithms for small k were introduced by [Forster et al. SODA 2020]. Prior to that, the best known algorithm was one by [Henzinger et al. FOCS'96] with quadratic running time when k is small. In this pape…
In the vertex connectivity problem, given an undirected $n$-vertex $m$-edge graph $G$, we need to compute the minimum number of vertices that can disconnect $G$ after removing them. This problem is one of the most well-studied graph problems. From 2019, a new line of work [Nanongkai et al.~STOC'19;SODA'20;STOC'21] has used randomized techniques to break the quadratic-time barrier and, very recently, culminated in an almost-linear time algorithm via the recently announced maxflow algorithm by Chen et al. In contrast, all known deterministic algorithms are much slower. The fastest algorithm [Gab…
We present a streaming algorithm for the vertex connectivity problem in dynamic streams with a (nearly) optimal space bound: for any $n$-vertex graph $G$ and any integer $k \geq 1$, our algorithm with high probability outputs whether or not $G$ is $k$-vertex-connected in a single pass using $\widetilde{O}(k n)$ space. Our upper bound matches the known $Ω(k n)$ lower bound for this problem even in insertion-only streams -- which we extend to multi-pass algorithms in this paper -- and closes one of the last remaining gaps in our understanding of dynamic versus insertion-only streams. Our result …
In this paper we present succinct labeling schemes for supporting connectivity queries under vertex faults. For a given $n$-vertex graph $G$, an $f$-VFT (resp., EFT) connectivity labeling scheme is a distributed data structure that assigns each of the graph edges and vertices a short label, such that given the labels of a vertex pair $u$ and $v$, and the labels of at most $f$ failing vertices (resp., edges) $F$, one can determine if $u$ and $v$ are connected in $G \setminus F$. The primary complexity measure is the length of the individual labels. Since their introduction by [Courcelle, Twigg,…
We study dynamic planar graphs with $n$ vertices, subject to edge deletion, edge contraction, edge insertion across a face, and the splitting of a vertex in specified corners. We dynamically maintain a combinatorial embedding of such a planar graph, subject to connectivity and $2$-vertex-connectivity (biconnectivity) queries between pairs of vertices. Whenever a query pair is connected and not biconnected, we find the first and last cutvertex separating them. Additionally, we allow local changes to the embedding by flipping the embedding of a subgraph that is connected by at most two vertices …
Recently, Chalermsook et al. [SODA'21(arXiv:2007.07862)] introduces a notion of vertex sparsifiers for $c$-edge connectivity, which has found applications in parameterized algorithms for network design and also led to exciting dynamic algorithms for $c$-edge st-connectivity [Jin and Sun FOCS'21(arXiv:2004.07650)]. We study a natural extension called vertex sparsifiers for $c$-hyperedge connectivity and construct a sparsifier whose size matches the state-of-the-art for normal graphs. More specifically, we show that, given a hypergraph $G=(V,E)$ with $n$ vertices and $m$ hyperedges with $k$ term…
We revisit the vertex-failure connectivity oracle problem. This is one of the most basic graph data structure problems under vertex updates, yet its complexity is still not well-understood. We essentially settle the complexity of this problem by showing a new data structure whose space, preprocessing time, update time, and query time are simultaneously optimal up to sub-polynomial factors assuming popular conjectures. Moreover, the data structure is deterministic. More precisely, for any integer $d_{\star}$, the data structure preprocesses a graph $G$ with $n$ vertices and $m$ edges in $\hat{O…
We consider node-weighted survivable network design (SNDP) in planar graphs and minor-closed families of graphs. The input consists of a node-weighted undirected graph $G=(V,E)$ and integer connectivity requirements $r(uv)$ for each unordered pair of nodes $uv$. The goal is to find a minimum weighted subgraph $H$ of $G$ such that $H$ contains $r(uv)$ disjoint paths between $u$ and $v$ for each node pair $uv$. Three versions of the problem are edge-connectivity SNDP (EC-SNDP), element-connectivity SNDP (Elem-SNDP) and vertex-connectivity SNDP (VC-SNDP) depending on whether the paths are require…
Vertex connectivity a classic extensively-studied problem. Given an integer $k$, its goal is to decide if an $n$-node $m$-edge graph can be disconnected by removing $k$ vertices. Although a linear-time algorithm was postulated since 1974 [Aho, Hopcroft and Ullman], and despite its sibling problem of edge connectivity being resolved over two decades ago [Karger STOC'96], so far no vertex connectivity algorithms are faster than $O(n^2)$ time even for $k=4$ and $m=O(n)$. In the simplest case where $m=O(n)$ and $k=O(1)$, the $O(n^2)$ bound dates five decades back to [Kleitman IEEE Trans. Circuit T…
We present a new, simple, algorithm for the local vertex connectivity problem (LocalVC) introduced by Nanongkai~et~al. [STOC'19]. Roughly, given an undirected unweighted graph $G$, a seed vertex $x$, a target volume $ν$, and a target separator size $k$, the goal of LocalVC is to remove $k$ vertices `near' $x$ (in terms of $ν$) to disconnect the graph in `local time', which depends only on parameters $ν$ and $k$. In this paper, we present a simple randomized algorithm with running time $O(νk^2)$ and correctness probability $2/3$. Plugging our new localVC algorithm in the generic framework of Na…
Real-world networks are prone to breakdowns. Typically in the underlying graph $G$, besides the insertion or deletion of edges, the set of active vertices changes overtime. A vertex might work actively, or it might fail, and gets isolated temporarily. The active vertices are grouped as a set $S$. $S$ is subjected to updates, i.e., a failed vertex restarts, or an active vertex fails, and gets deleted from $S$. Dynamic subgraph connectivity answers the queries on connectivity between any two active vertices in the subgraph of $G$ induced by $S$. The problem is solved by a dynamic data structure,…
We present a deterministic fully dynamic algorithm to answer $c$-edge connectivity queries on pairs of vertices in $n^{o(1)}$ worst case update and query time for any positive integer $c = (\log n)^{o(1)}$ for a graph with $n$ vertices. Previously, only polylogarithmic and $O(\sqrt{n})$ worst case update time fully dynamic algorithms were known for answering $1$, $2$ and $3$-edge connectivity queries respectively [Henzinger and King 1995, Frederikson 1997, Galil and Italiano 1991]. Our result extends the $c$-edge connectivity vertex sparsifier [Chalermsook et al. 2021] to a multi-level sparsif…
The basic goal of survivable network design is to build a cheap network that maintains the connectivity between given sets of nodes despite the failure of a few edges/nodes. The Connectivity Augmentation Problem (CAP) is arguably one of the most basic problems in this area: given a $k$(-edge)-connected graph $G$ and a set of extra edges (links), select a minimum cardinality subset $A$ of links such that adding $A$ to $G$ increases its edge connectivity to $k+1$. Intuitively, one wants to make an existing network more reliable by augmenting it with extra edges. The best known approximation fact…
Li and Panigrahi, in recent work, obtained the first deterministic algorithm for the global minimum cut of a weighted undirected graph that runs in time $o(mn)$. They introduced an elegant and powerful technique to find isolating cuts for a terminal set in a graph via a small number of $s$-$t$ minimum cut computations. In this paper we generalize their isolating cut approach to the abstract setting of symmetric bisubmodular functions (which also capture symmetric submodular functions). Our generalization to bisubmodularity is motivated by applications to element connectivity and vertex connect…
A new metric for quantifying pairwise vertex connectivity in graphs is defined and an implementation presented. While general in nature, it features a combination of input features well-suited for social networks, including applicability to directed or undirected graphs, weighted edges, and computes using the impact from all-paths between the vertices. Moreover, the $O(V+E)$ method is applicable to large graphs. Comparisons with other techniques are included.
Consider the following "local" cut-detection problem in a directed graph: We are given a starting vertex $s$ and need to detect whether there is a cut with at most $k$ edges crossing the cut such that the side of the cut containing $s$ has at most $Δ$ interior edges. If we are given query access to the input graph, then this problem can in principle be solved in sublinear time without reading the whole graph and with query complexity depending on $k$ and $Δ$. We design an elegant randomized procedure that solves a slack variant of this problem with $O(k^2 Δ)$ queries, improving in particular a…
Self-stabilization for non-masking fault-tolerant distributed system has received considerable research interest over the last decade. In this paper, we propose a self-stabilizing algorithm for 2-edge-connectivity and 2-vertex-connectivity of an asynchronous distributed computer network. It is based on a self-stabilizing depth-first search, and is not a composite algorithm in the sense that it is not composed of a number of self-stabilizing algorithms that run concurrently. The time and space complexities of the algorithm are the same as those of the underlying self-stabilizing depth-first sea…
