Fault tolerant packet-switched network design and its sensitivity

Reliability and performance for telecommunication networks have traditionally been investigated separately in spite of their close relation. A design method integrating them for a reliable packet switched network, called a proofing method, is presented. Two heuristic design approaches (max-average, max-delay-link) for optimizing network cost in the proofing method are described. To verify their effectiveness and applicability, they are compared numerically for three example network topologies. The sensitivity of these two methods is examined with respect to changes in traffic demand and in link reliability. The design sensitivity to variation of input data is examined by changing the predicted probability of link failure, and by increasing the network traffic over the predicted value. The resulting analysis shows relative insensitivity of solutions generated by the two design methods to input data