scope:

SCOPE & PURPOSE

Service availability has received strong attention in ATIS PRQC in terms of metric definitions as well as measurement methodologies. This Technical Report (TR) addresses the issue of service availability by approaching it from a proactive network planning perspective. Specifically, this TR highlights the planning of necessary network resources such that a desired level of service availability can be engineered. The planning is brought into sharp relief through a step-wise approach to an end-to-end design for network reliability. The methodology leverages the learning from legacy-networks while addressing the challenges faced by the Next-Generation Networks (NGNs). To design network elements at the appropriate level of reliability the Significant Point of Failure (SgPoF) metric is introduced. It measures the impact of network-element (NE) failure on servicesubscribers. Calculations are provided to illustrate the concepts introduced.

This proposal supports the ATIS-PRQC issue A0049 "A Methodology for Design of End-to- End Network Reliability for Proactive Reliability Planning" [AT-0049]. The methodology will be of interest to all parties involved in telecommunication (i.e., large enterprises or service-providers that need the communications networks and vendors who supply the networks).