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All drawings appearing in this Recommendation have been done in Autocad.
Recommendation E.550
GRADE-OF-SERVICE AND NEW PERFORMANCE CRITERIA UNDER FAILURE
CONDITIONS IN INTERNATIONAL TELEPHONE EXCHANGES
1 Introduction
1.1 This Recommendation is confined to failures in a single exchange and their
impact on calls within that exchange - network impacts are not covered in these
Recommendations.
1.2 This Recommendation from the viewpoint of exchange Grade of Service (GOS) has been established.
1.3 In conformity with Recommendation E.543 for transit exchanges
under normal operation, this Recommendation applies primarily to
international digital exchanges. However, Administrations may
consider these Recommendations for their national networks.
1.4 The GOS seen by a subscriber (blocking and/or delay in
establishing calls) is not only affected by the variations in
traffic loads but also by the partial or complete faults of network
components. The concept of customer-perceived GOS is not restricted
to specific fault and restoration conditions. For example, the
customer is usually not aware of the fact that a network problem
has occurred, and he is unable to distinguish a failure condition
from a number of other conditions such as peak traffic demands or
equipment shortages due to routine maintenance activity. It is
therefore necessary that suitable performance criteria and GOS
objectives for international telephone exchanges be formulated that
take account of the impact of partial and total failures of the
exchange. Further, appropriate definitions, models and measurement
and calculation methods need to be developed as part of this
activity.
1.5 From the subscriber's point of view, the GOS should not only
be defined by the level of unsatisfactory service but also by the
duration of the intervals in which the GOS is unsatisfactory and by
the frequency with which it occurs. Thus, in its most general form
the performance criteria should take into account such factors as:
intensity of failures and duration of resulting faults, traffic
demand at time of failures, number of subscribers affected by the
failures and the distortions in traffic patterns caused by the
failures.
However, from a practical viewpoint, it will be desirable to
start with simpler criteria that could be gradually developed to
account for all the factors mentioned above.
1.6 Total or partial failures within the international part of the
network have a much more severe effect than similar failures in the
national networks because the failed components in the national
networks can be isolated and affected traffic can be rerouted.
Failures in the international part of the network may
therefore lead to degraded service in terms of increased blocking
delays and even complete denial of service for some time. The
purpose of this Recommendation is to set some service objectives
for international exchanges so that the subscribers demanding
international connections are assured a certain level of service.
It should be noted however that where there are multi-gateway
exchanges providing access to and from a country, with diversity of
circuits and provision for restoration, the actual GOS will be
better than that for the single exchange.
2 General considerations
2.1 The new performance criteria being sought involve concepts from the field
of "availability" (intensity of failures and duration of faults) and "traffic
congestion" (levels of blocking and/or delay). It is therefore necessary that the
terminology, definitions and models considered should be consistent with the
appropriate CCITT Recommendations on terminology and vocabulary.
2.2 During periods of heavy congestion, caused either by traffic peaks or due
to malfunction in the exchange, a significant increase in repeated attempts is
likely to occur. Further, it is expected that due to accumulated demands during a
period of complete faults, the exchange will experience a heavy traffic load
immediately after a failure condition has been removed and service restored. The
Fascicle II.3 - Rec. E.550 PAGE1
potential effects of these phenomena on the proposed GOS under failure conditions
should be taken into account (for further study).
3 Exchange performance characteristics under fault situations
3.1 The exchange is considered to be in a fault situation if any failure in
the exchange (hardware, software, human errors) reduces its throughput when it is
needed to handle traffic. The following four classes of exchange faults are
included in this Recommendation:
a) complete exchange faults;
b) partial faults resulting in capacity reduction in all traffic flows to
the same extent;
c) partial faults in which traffic flows to or from a particular point are
restricted or totally isolated from their intended route;
d) intermittent fault affecting a certain proportion of calls.
3.2 To the extent practical, an exchange should be designed so that the
failure of a unit (or units) within the exchange should have as little as
possible adverse affect on its throughput. In addition, the exchange should be
able to take measures within itself to lessen the impact of any overload
resulting from failure of any of its units. Units within an exchange whose
failure reduces the exchange throughput by greater amounts than other units
should have proportionally higher availability (Recommendation Q.504, S 4).
3.3 When a failure reduces exchange throughput and congestion occurs, the
exchange should be able to initiate congestion control indications to other
exchanges and network management systems so as to help control the offered load
to the exchange, (Recommendations E.410 and Q.506).
4 GOS and applicable models
4.1 In this section, the terms "accessible" and "inaccessible" are used in the
sense defined in Recommendation G.106 (Red Book). The GOS for exchanges under
failure conditions can be formulated at the following two conceptual levels from
a subscriber's viewpoint:
4.1.1 Instantaneous service accessibility (inaccessibility)
At this level, one focuses on the probability that the service is
accessible (not accessible) to the subscriber at the instant he places a demand.
4.1.2 Mean service accessibility (inaccessibility)
At this level, one extends the concept of "downtime" used in availability
specifications for exchanges to include the effects of partial failures and
traffic overloads over a long period of time.
4.2 Based on the GOS concept outlined in S 4.1, the GOS parameters for
exchanges under failure conditions are defined as follows:
4.2.1 instantaneous exchange inaccessibility is the probability that
the exchange in question cannot perform the required function (i.e.
cannot successfully process calls) under stated conditions at the
time a request for service is placed.
4.2.2 mean exchange service inaccessibility is the average of
instantaneous exchange service inaccessibility over a prespecified
observation period (e.g. one year).
4.2.3 Note 1 - The GOS model in the case of instantaneous exchange
inaccessibility parallels the concept of the call congestion in
traffic theory and needs to be extended to include the call
congestion caused by exchange failures classified in S 3.1. The GOS
value can then be assigned on a basis similar to Recommendation
E.543 for transit exchanges under normal operation.
Note 2 - A model for estimating the mean exchange
inaccessibility is provided in Annex A. Though the model provides a
simple and hence attractive approach, some practical issues related
to measurement and monitoring and the potential effects of network
management controls and scheduled maintenance on the GOS need
further study.
PAGE8 Fascicle II.3 - Rec. E.550
4.3 The model in Figure 1/E.550 outlines the change in the nature
of traffic offered under failure conditions.
Figure 1/E.550 - T0200870-87
In normal conditions the congestion factor B is low and there should be
few repeat attempts: as a consequence the traffic At approximates Ao.
Under failure conditions there is a reduction in resources and the
congestion factor B increases. This provokes the phenomenon of repeat attempts
and hence the load At on the exchange becomes greater than the original Ao.
Therefore it is necessary to evaluate the congestion with the new load At
assuming system stability exists, which may not always be the case.
Recommendation E.501 furnishes the appropriate models to detect the
traffic offered from the carried traffic taking into account the repeat attempts.
4.4 The impact on the GOS for each of the exchange fault modes can be
characterized by:
- load in Erlangs (At) and busy hour call attempts (BHCA);
- inaccessibility (instantaneous and mean), congestion and delay
parameters (call set-up, through-connection, etc.);
- fault duration;
- failure intensity.
5 GOS standards and inaccessibility
5.1 Exchange fault situations can create similar effects to overload traffic
conditions applied to an exchange under fault free conditions.
In general, digital exchanges operating in the network should be capable
of taking action to ensure maximum throughput when they encounter an overload
condition, including any that have been caused by a fault condition within the
exchange.
Calls that have been accepted for processing by the exchange should
continue to be processed as expeditiously as possible, consistent with the
overload protection strategies recommended in S 3 of Recommendation Q.543.
5.2 One of the actions the exchange may take to preserve call processing
capacity is to initiate congestion controls and/or other network management
actions, to control the load offered to the exchange (Recommandations E.410,
E.413 and Q.506). The most obvious impact from the caller's viewpoint may be a
lowering of the probability that the network as a whole will be able to complete
some portion of the call attempts that the exchange is unable to accept during
the failure condition.
5.3 International exchanges occupy a prominent place in the network and it is
important that their processing capacity have high availability. There are likely
to be many variations in exchange architectures and sizes that will have
different impacts in the categories of failure and the resulting loss of
capacity.
In general, failures that cause large proportions of exchange capacity to
be lost must have a low probability of occurring and a short downtime. It is
important that maintenance procedures to achieve appropriate exchange
availability performance be adopted.
5.4 The formal expression of the criterion of mean exchange service
inaccessibility is as follows:
Let:
y(t): Intensity of call attempts gaining access through the exchange
assuming no failures.
s(t): Intensity of call attempts actually given access through the
exchange, taking into account the fault conditions which occur in the
exchange.
Then the mean exchange service inaccessibility during a period of time T is given
by
P = eq \f( 1, T) \i(0,T, ) eq \f( y(t) - s(t), y(t)) dt
Annex A describes a practical implementation of this criterion.
For periods in which the exchange experiences a complete fault, i.e. s(t)
= 0, the expression:
eq \f(y(t) - s(t), y(t)) is equal to 1.
The contribution of such periods to the total criterion P may then be
expressed simply as the fraction Ptotal of the evaluation peri T during which
complete exchange outage due to failure occurred.
The objective for Ptotal is given as Ptotal not more than 0.4 hours per year.
Fascicle II.3 - Rec. E.550 PAGE1
For the period of partial failure, it is convenient to also express the
objective as equivalent hours per year - the term equivalent is used because the
duration of partial faults is weighted by the fraction:
eq \f(y(t) - s(t), y(t))
of call attempts denied access. The objectives for the contribution of period of
partial exchange faults to the total criterion P is given by:
Ppartial not more than 1.0 equivalent hours per year.
Note that by definition P = Ptotal + Ppartial
The inaccessibility criterion does not cover:
- planned outages
- faults with duration of less than 10 seconds
- accidental damage to equipment during maintenance
- external failures such as power failures, etc.
It does cover failures resulting from both hardware and software faults.
In addition, the objectives relate to the exchange under normal operating
conditions and do not include failures just after cutover of an exchange or those
during the end of the period it is in service, i.e. the well known "bath tub"
distribution.
6 Performance monitoring
Certain failure conditions [i.e. the type mentioned in S 3.1, b)] usually
will be reflected in the normal GOS performance measurements called for in
Recommendation E.543.
Other failure conditions [i.e. the type mentioned in S 3.1, c)] can result
in a reduced performance for a portion of traffic flows but with little or no
impact on measured exchange GOS. For example if a trunk module in a digital
exchange fails, the traffic normally associated with that module is completely
blocked, but since the attempts are also not measured the failure does not change
the monitoring of the exchange GOS.
For this second situation, the mean inaccessibility can be calculated
using direct measurement of unit outages to provide mi and ti information and
estimates of bi together with the model of Annex A. (See Annex A for an
explanation of these symbols.)
The estimates of bi can incorporate both fixed factors based on exchange
architecture and variable factors based on traffic measurements just prior to the
time of failure.
ANNEX A
(to Recommendation E.550)
A model for mean exchange inaccessibility
A.1 Let P be the probability that a call attempt is not processed due to a
fault in the exchange, then:
eq P = \i\su(i=1,N, )pi bi (A-1)
where:
pi is the probability of fault mode i. Each fault mode denotes a specific
combination of faulty exchange components
N is the number of the fault mode
bi is the average proportion of traffic which cannot be processed due to
the fault mode i. It is a function of the specific fault present and
the offered traffic load at the time of the failure condition.
During a period of time T, the fault probability pi may be estimated by:
pi = eq \f( mi . ti, T) i = 1, 2, . . . N (A-2)
where:
mi is the number of occurrences of fault mode i during the period T
ti is the average duration of occurrences of fault mode i
As a practical matter, one may wish to exclude from the calculation faults
of duration less than 15 seconds.
Note 1 - A given fault mode causes the exchange to enter the corresponding
fault state, which is characterized by a given mean duration and a function bi
giving the proportion of offered traffic affected. In principle, the possible
number of fault modes can be very large because of the number of combinations
which can occur. In practice this number can be reduced by considering all fault
modes with the same bi and ti as equivalent.
Note 2 - bi should take into account the distribution of traffic during a
day and the probability of fault mode i occurring in a given time period. The
value assigned in the above model should be the average bi value for all hours
considered in these distributions. For example, a partial fault affecting 20% of
PAGE8 Fascicle II.3 - Rec. E.550
the exchange traffic throughput in the busy hour and 2 similar hours, could be
evaluated to effect a 10% reduction in 4 other moderately busy hours and to have
negligible impact during all other hours. If this fault is considered to be
equally probable in time, the average value of bi can be obtained as follows:
bi = Sum ofeq \b\bc\( (\f( Percentage of traffic affected x number
of relevant busy hours, 24 hours)) =
=eq \f( 0.2 x 3, 24) +eq \f( 0.1 x 4, 24) +eq \f( 0.0 x 17, 24) =
0.025 + 0.0167 = 0.0417
Note 3 - The probability that a call attempt is not processed relates to
the category of traffic affected by the fault. Other traffic will experience a
different GOS depending on system architecture which is not taken into account in
this Recommendation. For example, partial faults which remove from service blocks
of trunks connected to an exchange have the effect of reducing the total traffic
offered to the exchange. The traffic flows not using the failed trunks could thus
have a slightly improved GOS.
A.2 Example for calculating the inaccessibility, P
See Table A-1/E.550.
TABLE A.1/E.550
An example of using the model for calculating the inaccessibility P
(T = 1 year = 8760 hours)
bi mi ti pi . bi
Average proportion Number of failures Average duration of Probability that a
of traffic which of failure type i call attempt is not
cannot be processed type i per year (hours) processed (x 10-5)
1.00 2 0.2 4.56
0.40 3 0.22 3.01
0.20 4 0.3 2.74
0.10 6 0.4 2.74
0.05 10 0.5 2.85
Fascicle II.3 - Rec. E.550 PAGE1
The value of P is the sum of the individual pi.bi terms in Table
A-1/E.550. In this example P = 15.90 x 10-5 which is equivalent to 1.39 hours of
inaccessibility per year (1.39 = 15.90 x 10-5 x 8760). P decomposes as follows:
Ptotal = 0.40 hours per year (4.56 x 10-5 x 8760)
Ppartial = 0.99 hours per year (the remaining part of P)
A.3 As a further example consider a circuit group where exchange failures may
occur which disable one or more circuits (see Figure A-1/E.550). It is possible
to expand the formula (A-1).
Figure A-1/E.550 - T0200880-87
The average proportion of traffic b(n, k, A), which cannot be processed
due to failures on circuits is now a function of:
- n, the size of the circuit group;
- k, number of circuits out of order because of the failure;
- A, the mean traffic offered to the circuit group, in the absence of
faults.
Let the throughput of a circuit group of size n with a traffic offered A be Cn(A)
- then the throughput of the same circuit group is Cn-k(A) where k circuits are
out of order - hence the average proportion of traffic b(n, k, A) which cannot be
processed because of the failure is given by:
b(n, k, A) = eq \f( [Cn(A) - Cn-k (A)], Cn(A)) (A-3)
Let
f(k, A) be the probability for having k circuits in a fault condition and
the mean offered traffic A. The probability, Pn, that a call attempt is not
processed due to a failure on a circuit group of size n, is given by:
Pn = eq \i\su(k\l(,)A, , ) f (k, A) . b(n, k, A) k = 1, 2, . .
. n (A-4)
If k and A are independent then
f (k, A) = f1(k) . f2(A) (A-5)
where f1 (k) may satisfy a binomial distribution and f2(A) a Poisson
distribution.
Suppose the traffic follows an Erlang distribution, Cn(A) is proportional
to A . (1 - En(A)), where En(A) is the blocking probability expressed by the
Erlang loss formula. Hence:
b (n, k, A) = eq \f( En-k (A) - En (A), 1 - En (A)) (A-6)
can be found by using the Erlang tables and then inserting the value into
equation (A-4).
PAGE8 Fascicle II.3 - Rec. E.550
