ARTICULATING USER PREFERENCES ABOUTSURVIVABILITY IN A NETWORK PLANNING DSS

摘要

Decision support systems for planning today’s high capacity networks, like those in telecommunications, mustrninclude features that model “survivability”. This property assures that traffic is protected from the potentialrndamages associated with some disruption, like a break in a network link. When a network provides “100%rnsurvivability”, the property is fairly well defined: all of the traffic is protected against any network failure.rnHowever, if a planner is willing to accept some smaller percentage of survivability, e.g., to lower the cost ofrnthe network, then some ambiguities arise. There are a variety of ways that partial survivability can berninterpreted, measured, and provided. Currently available decision support systems for network planning arernlimited in their ability to model these different options. In this paper, we proposed some features that could bernadded as enhancements to a DSS, so that it can better satisfy a planner’s needs regarding survivability. Werndescribe features to model the alternative schemes available to measure partial survivability. These would givernthe planner the opportunity to articulate more meaningful objectives regarding network survivability. Thernenhanced DSS could then invoke the appropriate models and algorithms to help the planner identify what shernwould consider to be superior network solutions. In addition, such a system could help the planner evaluaternthe trade-offs between network survivability and network cost.