Network Centrality and Robustness
Introduction
A system is robust if the failure of some components doesn’t affect its function. As network engineers, we face various types of network failures like link, node failures all the time.
Generally, we use various Network modeling tools like Cariden(WAE), WANDL, etc. to model failures and see how the network reacts under a given failure condition. The components which are in play are:
- Type and Number of failures. Type: Link, Node. Number of Failures: Single or Double.
- Routing protocols running on top of the network and there reaction to the failure. Example: RSVP-TE, Pure IGP, SR-TE etc.
- Network flows and their volume.
- Network Topology.
In this blog post, we will focus purely on #4 Network topology and certain characteristics of topology, which may make them more robust than other topologies.
Key Idea
The network topology may have some critical nodes. If we can identify them and take them out of the service, they will significantly impact the functionality of the network. For example, in the case of a Hub and Spoke topology, if a Hub is out of service, it affects all the spokes vs. a spoke out of service. We can make this hub and spoke topology more Continue reading


