Modeling and quantifying the survivability of telecommunication network systems under fault propagation

This paper presents a generic state transition model to quantify the survivability attributes of a telecommunication network under fault propagation. This model provides a framework to characterize the network performance during the transient period that starts after the fault occurrence, in the subsequent fault propagation, and until the network fully recovers. Two distinct models are presented for physical fault and transient fault, respectively. Based on the models, the survivability quantification analysis is carried out for the system's transient behavior leading to measures like transient connectivity. Numerical results indicate that the proposed modeling and analysis approaches perform well in both cases. The results not only are helpful in estimating quantitatively the survivability of a network (design) but also provide insights on choosing among different survivable strategies.