Reliability-and-Availability Sensitivity Analysis on Convergent Network Infrastructures: Methodology and Case Study

The demand for various multimedia services has influenced the convergence of existing communication networks, allowing the integration of multiple traffic types through a single routable protocol (IP). Thus, we can adopt different strategies to meet quality requirements, ensure uninterrupted operations, high reliability, and lower maintenance costs. The model-based assessment enables the analysis of systems dependability without interference in the existing system and makes it possible to evaluate complex scenarios whose actual implementation may be impracticable due to costs. Evaluating a system in operation may not be trivial, or it can hinder the continuity of services. In this sense, we evaluated converged network infrastructures considering dependability metrics such as availability, reliability, mean time to failure, and downtime. We use sensitivity analysis to identify the components that can be essential on availability impact. The results allow us to identify the bottlenecks of the represented architectures.