An Efficient Method of Computing the Coefficients of the Network Reliability Polynomial and New Measures for Reliability: the Connectivity and the Capacity Polynomials.
21 October 1988
The reliability polynomial of a network (be it circuit or packet) provides a benchmark to evaluate topology by quantifying the proability of one or more existing operational paths between two given nodes or two average nodes, given the probabilities of failure of the communication links. This information aids in the analysis and design of survivable and self-healing networks. In this memorandum, we introduce a novel, efficient method to calculate the coefficients of the reliability polynomial of a network when the proabilities of link failure are independent and identical, having a value 1-p. This method is considerably faster than those in the literature.