To evaluate the expected availability of a backbone network service, the administrator should consider all possible failure scenarios under the specific service availability model stipulated in the corresponding service-level agreement. Given the increase in natural disasters and malicious attacks with geographically extensive impact, considering only independent single component failures is often insufficient. This paper builds a stochastic model of geographically correlated link failures caused by disasters to estimate the hazards an optical backbone network may be prone to and to understand the complex correlation between possible link failures. We first consider link failures only and later extend our model also to capture node failures. With such a model, one can quickly extract essential information such as the probability of an arbitrary set of network resources to fail simultaneously, the probability of two nodes to be disconnected, the probability of a path to survive a disaster. Furthermore, we introduce standard data structures and a unified terminology on Probabilistic Shared Risk Link Groups (PSRLGs), along with a pre-computation process, which represents the failure probability of a set of resources succinctly. In particular, we generate a quasilinear-sized data structure in polynomial time, which allows the efficient computation of the cumulative failure probability of any set of network elements. Our evaluation is based on carefully pre-processed seismic hazard data matched to real-world optical backbone network topologies.

Several works shed light on the vulnerability of networks against regional failures, which are failures of multiple pieces of equipment in a geographical region as a result of a natural or human-made disaster. This chapter overviews how this in- formation can be added to existing network protocols through defining Shared Risk Link Groups (SRLGs) and Probabilistic SRLGs (PSRLGs). The output of this chap- ter can be the inputs of later chapters to design and operate the networks to enhance the preparedness against disasters and regional failures in general. In particular, we are focusing on the state-of-the-art algorithmic approaches for generating lists of (P)SRLGs of the communication networks protecting different sets of disasters.

Guaranteeing a high availability of network services is a crucial part of network management. In this study, we show how to compute the availability of network services under earthquakes, by using empirical data. We take a multi-disciplinary approach and create an earthquake model based on seismological research and historical data. We then show how to integrate this empirical disaster model into existing network resiliency models to obtain the vulnerability and availability of a network under earthquakes. While previous studies have applied their models to ground shaking hazard models or earthquake scenarios, we compute (1) earthquake activity rates and (2) a relation between magnitude and disaster area, and use both as input data for our modeling. This approach is more in line with existing network resiliency models: it provides better information on the correlation between link failures than ground shaking hazard models and a more comprehensive view than a fixed set of scenarios.

In order to evaluate the expected availability of a service, a network administrator should consider all possible failure scenarios under the specific service availability model stipulated in the corresponding service-level agreement. Given the increase in natural disasters and malicious attacks with geographically extensive impact, considering only independent single link failures is often insufficient. In this paper, we build a stochastic model of geographically correlated link failures caused by disasters, in order to estimate the hazards a network may be prone to, and to understand the complex correlation between possible link failures. With such a model, one can quickly extract information, such as the probability of an arbitrary set of links to fail simultaneously, the probability of two nodes to be disconnected, the probability of a path to survive a failure, etc. Furthermore, we introduce a pre-computation process, which enables us to succinctly represent the joint probability distribution of link failures. In particular, we generate, in polynomial time, a quasilinear-sized data structure, with which the joint failure probability of any set of links can be computed efficiently.

Recent natural disasters have revealed that emergency networks presently cannot disseminate the necessary disaster information, making it difficult to deploy and coordinate relief operations. These disasters have reinforced the knowledge that telecommunication networks constitute a critical infrastructure of our society, and the urgency in establishing protection mechanisms against disaster-based disruptions. Hence, it is important to have emergency networks able to maintain sustainable communication in disaster areas. Moreover, the network architecture should be designed so that network connectivity is maintained among nodes outside of the impacted area, while ensuring that services for costumers not in the affected area suffer minimal impact. As a first step towards achieving disaster resilience, the RECODIS project was formed, and its Working Group 1 members conducted a comprehensive literature survey on “strategies for communication networks to protect against large-scale natural disasters,” which is summarized in this article.