Reliability Activity
Scenario
The map shown below depicts the location of the seven
Bank branches to interconnect.
There are many possible different types of medium that
can be chosen for connecting two nodes. Examples are:
- Copper twisted pair,
- wireless link,
- coaxial cable,
- optical fiber,
- infrared link, and
- microwave link.
Also, the bank may rent bandwidth from different telecommunications providers.
The relevant data are:

This activity is related to the concept of
Network Reliability. Links can fail
with different probability depending on the
type of medium chosen. Upon failure of certain
links, however, the network may still be
functional, meaning that all the Bank branches are
connected by operational links. In such situations,
repairs are not very costly because no loss
of data transfers occur. If, however, a particular
link failure pattern occcurs where one or
more Bank branches are disconnected from the rest, then the ensuing
costs for the Bank may be enormous!
Network Reliability
Network Reliability is defined as the probability
that all branches are connected by
operational links. More formally, the mathematical model is:
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