Measuring the resilience of the global internet infrastructure system

Abstract

Resilience is the ability of the system to both absorb shock as well to recover rapidly from a disruption so that it can return back to its original service delivery levels or close to it. In the aftermath of 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, there has been an increasing interest in infrastructure resilience. The global submarine fiber optics cable network that serves as the backbone of the internet is a particularly critical infrastructure system that is vulnerable to both natural and man-made disasters. In this paper, we propose a model to measure the base resiliency of this global network, and explore the node to node and global resiliency of the network using existing data demand, capacity and flow information. The base resiliency of the system can be measured as the value delivery of the system after a disruption to the value deliver of the system before a disruption. We further demonstrate how the resiliency of the global internet infrastructure is enhanced through reducing the network vulnerability and increasing its adaptive capacity.