Unveiling Potential Failure Propagation Scenarios in Core Transport Networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates potential failure propagation scenarios in core transport networks, especially focusing on SDN-controlled Backbone Transport Networks, to help predict and mitigate large-scale failures.

Contribution

It identifies epidemic-like failure risks in Dynamic Transport Networks and proposes scenarios for failure propagation in SDN-controlled backbone networks.

Findings

DTNs are prone to epidemic-like failures

Failure propagation scenarios in SDNTNs are identified

Insights aid in designing survivability strategies

Abstract

The contemporary society has become more dependent on telecommunication networks. Novel services and technologies supported by such networks, such as cloud computing or e-Health, hold a vital role in modern day living. Large-scale failures are prone to occur, thus being a constant threat to business organizations and individuals. To the best of our knowledge, there are no publicly available reports regarding failure propagation in core transport networks. Furthermore, Software Defined Networking (SDN) is becoming more prevalent in our society and we can envision more SDN-controlled Backbone Transport Networks (BTNs) in the future. For this reason, we investigate the main motivations that could lead to epidemic-like failures in BTNs and SDNTNs. To do so, we enlist the expertise of several research groups with significant background in epidemics, network resiliency, and security. In addition, we consider the experiences of three network providers. Our results illustrate that Dynamic Transport Networks (DTNs) are prone to epidemic-like failures. Moreover, we propose different situations in which a failure can propagate in SDNTNs. We believe that the key findings will aid network engineers and the scientific community to predict this type of disastrous failure scenario and plan adequate survivability strategies.