The robust-yet-fragile nature of interdependent networks

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different coupling patterns affect the robustness of interdependent ER and BA networks under failures and attacks, revealing their robust-yet-fragile nature and dependence on network type and failure mode.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of ER and BA interdependent networks' robustness under various failure scenarios, highlighting the impact of coupling patterns.

Findings

ER networks are robust-yet-fragile under failures and attacks

BA networks are robust-yet-fragile under failures but fragile under attacks

Coupling patterns significantly influence network robustness

Abstract

Interdependent networks have been shown to be extremely vulnerable based on the percolation model. Parshani et. al further indicated that the more inter-similar networks are, the more robust they are to random failure. Our understanding of how coupling patterns shape and impact the cascading failures of loads in interdependent networks is limited, but is essential for the design and optimization of the real-world interdependent networked systems. This question, however, is largely unexplored. In this paper, we address this question by investigating the robustness of interdependent ER random graphs and BA scale-free networks under both random failure and intentional attack. It is found that interdependent ER random graphs are robust-yet-fragile under both random failures and intentional attack. Interdependent BA scale-free networks, however, are only robust-yet-fragile under random failure but fragile under intentional attack. These results advance our understanding of the robustness of interdependent networks significantly.