Improving reliability bounds in computer networks

Timothy B. Brecht, Charles J. Colbourn

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

The probability that a computer network is operational in an environment of statistically independent link failures has been widely studied. Three natural problems arise, when all nodes are to be connected (all‐terminal reliability), when two nodes are to communicate (2‐terminal reliability), and when k specified nodes are to communicate (k‐terminal reliability); the latter case includes the first two. Each of these reliability measures is NP‐hard to compute, and thus efficiently computable reliability bounds are of significant interest. To date, the all‐terminal and 2‐terminal cases have been treated separately, and few results apply to the k‐terminal case. In this paper, we develop a simple strategy to obtain k‐terminal reliability bounds. In the process, we demonstrate improvements on the previous best bounds for all‐terminal, k‐terminal, and 2‐terminal reliability. Computational experience with these new bounds is reported, by comparing the new lower bounds to existing lower bounds.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)369-380
Number of pages12
JournalNetworks
Volume16
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1986
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Information Systems
  • Hardware and Architecture
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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