Software tool for network reliability and availability analysis

The emerging communication applications such as IPTV, VoIP, infotainment, interactive games, and Internet access might dictate very high reliability and availability in future fiber access networks. We present an easy-to-use software tool, called NetExpert, designed to simplify the network planning, design and optimization processes and save valuable time preparing network configurations that provide a desired level of network reliability, availability, and fiber length. The reliability and availability model used in the software tool is presented in the paper. We present a comparative analysis of network topologies for Fiber Networks. In particular, we present results that compare different topologies such as as star, ring, bus, multilevel stars, multilevel rings, multilevel buses, hybrid multilevel star-rings, hybrid multilevel ring-stars, and hybrid multilevel ring-buses in terms of availability, reliability, and fiber length requirements of networks. Protection is also considered and results on the protected versions of the aforementioned topologies are also presented.