Risk assessment methodology for network integrity

Modern, high functionality networks support an ever-increasing range of sophisticated services; but this strength is also a weakness due to the fragility of the complex distributed-processing capability. Unexpected perturbations can cause widespread network outages, i.e. 'brownout'. The risks to network integrity are exacerbated by regulatory policies that demand open network interconnection between competing network operators and service providers; and the increasing complexity where single experts cannot comprehend the whole problem space. This paper proposes a design methodology for a formal and systematic framework to assess the risk to network integrity and hence minimise network and service failure probability.