Reliability Assessment of Optical p-Cycles

Two recovery techniques suited for the next generation Internet are studied: traditional protection rings (BLSRs) and a novel, preconfigured protection cycles (p-cycles) technique. Theoretical formulas describing the reliability function as well as mean time to failure are derived. On the basis of our analysis, we show that p-cycles should not be used in wide-area networks since their reliability performance is outside the desired bounds.