Reliability and cost‐effectiveness of a telecommunication network composed of distributed switching nodes and high‐performance control nodes

Abstract

AbstractWe have already proposed DONA‐α (distributed object‐oriented network architecture) as a candidate architecture for future telecommunications networks. A node in a conventional network contains both control and switching subsystems. In DONA‐α, these subsystems are physically separated, as independent nodes, so the network is composed of a small number of high‐performance control nodes that each control numerous low‐capacity switching nodes.Since service faults in a large‐scale public telecommunications network can have a severe effect on human society, the reliability of conventional networks is improved by designing redundancy into the network architecture. However, this raises the network configuration cost.DONA‐α should reduce network configuration costs without drastically decreasing the reliability. This is because each switching node will accommodate fewer subscribers than a conventional subscriber node, so it will be possible to reduce the degree of redundancy.In this paper, we examine the relationship between reliability and the degree of redundancy in the architecture of a DONA‐α network. We also evaluate the reliability and cost‐effectiveness of a DONA‐α network compared with a conventional network. © 2001 Scripta Technica, Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 84(11): 1–15, 2001