Combat Information Transport System Reliability and Availability Performance

This paper describes the network modeling techniques that were developed to assess the reliability and availability performance of the Combat Information Transport System (CITS). CITS is the backbone network that provides high-capacity transport of data, voice, and video for all active duty and reserve Air Force bases. The model includes the network topology, the configuration and interconnection of network hardware, reliability and maintainability design predictions for all network hardware, and the expected network operational maintenance and sparing policies. The model provides an estimate of the mean time between critical failure (MTBCF), mean time between corrective maintenance action (MTBCMA), and availability performance of the CITS network. In addition, this paper describes how this modeling effort impacted the network design process and provides a summary of lessons learned. Finally, this paper will address simulation-based modeling efforts that are being developed, and how these can be used to enhance reliability and availability performance for highly-fault tolerant networks such as CITS.