Telecommunication networks play a vital role in all sectors of our society and are especially important during a crisis. Since networks rely on physical infrastructure (e.g., fibers and routers), they are vulnerable to natural disasters, such as earthquakes and floods, or physical attacks, such as an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. This project studies the impact of a disaster or attack on the telecommunications infrastructure and develops mechanisms to mitigate their effect. The project considers events that cause a large number of failures in a specific geographical region. It uses probabilistic and geometric failure models that take into account the geography of the network and the attack characteristics. Under these models, techniques to identify the most vulnerable parts of the network are developed. Moreover, tools to provide a-priori protection plan are designed. Finally, restoration algorithms that will improve the resilience of the network are developed. The project will provide a fundamental understanding of the vulnerability of networks to disasters or attacks. It will also provide network algorithms to mitigate the impact of, and recover from, such failures. Therefore, it has the potential to significantly enhance the availability and performance of networks in the event of attacks and disasters. This is crucial for disaster recovery, especially in today?s society that is increasingly reliant on the availability of a communications infrastructure. In addition, the broader impacts will include outreach activities to school children, and incorporation of the results into advanced graduate classes.
Telecommunication networks play a vital role in the day-to-day routine of all sectors of our society. During a crisis, telecommunications is essential to facilitate the control of physically remote agents, provides connections between emergency response personnel, and eventually enables reconstitution of societal functions. However, telecommunication networks heavily rely on physical infrastructures (such as optical fibers, amplifiers, routers, and switches), and therefore, are vulnerable to natural disasters, such as earthquakes or floods, as well as to physical attacks, such as an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) attack. Increasingly, networks use a shared infrastructure to carry voice, data, and video simultaneously; hence, failures in the physical infrastructure will lead to a break down of vital services. Physical attacks or disasters affect a specific geographical area and will result in failures of neighboring components. Although there has been a significant amount of work on network survivability, most previous work considered a small number of isolated failures. In contrast, this project considered events that cause a large number of failures in a specific geographical region. Furthermore, since network components in the vicinity of the attack are more likely to fail than those further away, this project studied failure models that take into account the geography of the network and the attack model. The main accomplishments of this project included the development of techniques to identify the most vulnerable parts of the network to attack. Such techniques are essential to designing network architectures that are rubust to such attacks. The project also developed tools to provide a-priori protection plan for the network via shielding of critical components and communication links. The project's education activities included mentoring graduate and undergraduate students, incorporating some of new theory and algorithms into advanced graduate networking classes, and outreach activities to K-12 students.
