Network Reliability and Fault Tolerance

This article introduces fundamental concepts in fault tolerance and reliability as applied to networks, with a focus on high-speed backbone networks. We first introduce basic terminology and elements necessary to fault tolerance, then describe the basic strategies for detecting and handling failures in networks. The discussion then builds on these basics to illustrate recovery schemes for high-speed backbone networks. An examination of the relationship between network topologies and recovery strategies follows, beginning with rings and then covering more general mesh networks. We cover some basic techniques used in packet-switched networks, and conclude with a discussion of local-area network approaches to fault tolerance. Keywords: networking; optical networks; circuit-switched; packet-switched; SONET; ATM; reliability; fault tolerance

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