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Estimated and exact system reliabilities of a maintainable computer network

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Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm to evaluate estimated and exact system reliabilities for a computer network in the cloud computing environment. From the quality of service (QOS) viewpoint, the computer network should be maintained when falling to a specific state such that it cannot afford enough capacity to satisfy demand. Moreover, the transmission time should be concerned as well. Thus, the data can be sent through several disjoint minimal paths simultaneously to shorten the transmission time. Under the maintenance budget B and time constraint T, we evaluate the system reliability that d units of data can be sent from the cloud to the client through multiple paths. Two procedures are integrated in the proposed algorithm-an estimation procedure for estimated system reliability and an adjusting procedure utilizing the branch-and-bound approach for exact system reliability. Subsequently, the estimated system reliability with lower bound and upper bound, and exact system reliability are computed by applying the recursive sum of disjoint products (RSDP) algorithm.

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Correspondence to Yi-Kuei Lin.

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This work was supported in part by the National Science Council of Taiwan under Grant No. NSC 99-2221-E-011-066-MY3.

Yi-Kuei Lin is currently a Chair Professor of Industrial Management Department, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, China. He received a Bachelor degree in Applied Mathematics Department from National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan. He obtained his Master degree and Ph.D. degree in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management at National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan, China. His research interest includes performance evaluation, stochastic network reliability, operations research and telecommunication management. He got the Outstanding Research Award from the National Science Council of Taiwan in 2008 and 2010, respectively. He has published more than 90 academic papers in refereed journals including European Journal of Operational Research; Computers and Operations Research; Reliability Engineering & System Safety; IEEE Transactions on Reliability; Journal of Production Economics; Applied Mathematics and Computation; Omega, etc.

Ping-Chen Chang is currently a Ph.D. candidate of Industrial Management Department, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, China. He received a Bachelor degree in the Department of Industrial and Business Management from Chang Gung University, Taiwan, China. He obtained his Master degree in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Yuan Ze University, Taiwan, China. His research interest includes performance evaluation and stochastic network reliability.

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Lin, YK., Chang, PC. Estimated and exact system reliabilities of a maintainable computer network. J. Syst. Sci. Syst. Eng. 20, 229–248 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11518-011-5161-2

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