A design technique for reliable networks under a nonuniform traffic distribution

Abstract

Many network-reliability analysis techniques define and compute a variety of reliability measures. Most techniques assume that network connectivity is the only determining factor in network reliability; and merely analyze an existing network structure but do not provide any methodology for reliable design. This paper presents a heuristic design algorithm to enhance the reliability of existing communication networks by modifying their topology. This algorithm improves the reliability of the least reliable node (reliability is the probability that messages transmitted from a given node reach their destination). To use this algorithm on large networks, a reliability analysis method is developed which determines approximate network reliability values in linear-time when an upper bound is placed upon the in-degree of all network nodes. The heuristic network design algorithm uses this approximate reliability analysis technique to place additional links. The goal of this link placement is to improve the reliability of the least-reliable node. The placement of additional links is a function of both the traffic distribution and the connectivity of the network. This process continues until either a desired level of network reliability is achieved or a maximum number of additional links has been added. A unique feature of this design strategy is that it has quadratic time-complexity when the maximum in-degree of all network nodes is limited. >