Incorporating survivability considerations directly into the network design process

A procedure for designing survivable, distributed communications networks is described. The approach uses a version of the cut-saturation algorithm modified to include considerations for survivability while adding and deleting link resources to meet specified throughput goals. This approach improves on the original design process, which made decisions on which link should be added or deleted based strictly on link utilization and link cost. Link distance was used for link cost when all links had the same capacity. Survivability considerations were directly integrated into the design process by using the information provided by the node decomposition (ND) and link tree (LT) indexes to indicate which links to add or to delete. If a link must be dropped, low LT index links make good candidates from a survivability standpoint. If a link must be added, low ND index nodes would be good termination points for adding the link. This replaces the original selection process with one oriented towards maintaining network survivability.>