Cost-Optimized Strategies for Maximizing Transport Network Availability

As more and more services become mission-critical, as enterprises demand ever more stringent Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and as consumers become less tolerant of disruptions to their services, high network availability has never been higher on the agenda. Examples include the 5G PPP targeting “zero perceived” downtime and a major North American carrier stating its new target as “six nines” (99.9999%) availability.

In an ideal world where cost is no object, every service would have close to 100% availability. However, in reality higher availability normally comes at a cost, and not all services the transport network needs to support have the same requirements. Some services are more cost sensitive and more tolerant of downtime. Other services will rely on other layers to deliver the levels of availability required. One size does not fit all. This white paper explores strategies to address the challenge of providing the highest level of network availability at the optimal cost for each service.