A computer approach for reliability evaluation of telecommunication networks with heterogeneous link-capacities

The authors present a computer approach to obtaining a survivability index called capacity related reliability (CRR) in large telecommunication networks where links have different capacities. The method is a two-step approach. The first step deals with composite path enumeration (CPE). A k-composite path is defined as the union of the set of edges in any k simple paths and relates link capacity and network connectivity. The CPE approach is an improvement over the algorithms proposed by the authors earlier (1991). In step two, k-composite paths information is manipulated to generate the CRR. The authors use CAREL (computer aided reliability evaluator) to solve this step. The technique is automated using C on the Encore Multimax System. The results on CRR for three networks with various values of minimum message capacity are presented. An exhaustive technique is used to verify these results. An informal proof of the CPE approach is also included