A framework for the design and evaluation of network resilience management

Abstract

Network resilience strategies aim to maintain acceptable levels of network operation in the face of challenges, such as malicious attacks, operational overload or equipment failures. Often the nature of these challenges requires resilience strategies comprising mechanisms across multiple protocol layers and in disparate locations of the network. In this paper, we address the problem of resilience management and advocate that a new approach is needed for the design and evaluation of resilience strategies. To support the realisation of this approach we propose a framework that enables (1) the offline evaluation of resilience strategies to combat several types of challenges, (2) the generalisation of successful solutions into reusable patterns of mechanisms, and (3) the rapid deployment of appropriate patterns when challenges are observed at run-time. The evaluation platform permits the simulation of a range of challenge scenarios and the resilience strategies used to combat these challenges. Strategies that can successfully address a particular type of challenge can be promoted to become resilience patterns. Patterns can thus be used to rapidly deploy resilience configurations of mechanisms when similar challenges are detected in the live network.