A new approach in using RAPTOR to evaluate reliability and availability for VoIP systems

Evaluating complex systems is not possible in absence of powerful software tools. RAPTOR (Rapid Availability Prototyping for Testing Operational Readiness) is a generic simulation product developed by ARINC that predicts reliability, maintainability and availability performance of systems and components. The author considers RAPTOR as being uniquely suited for evaluating communication network system reliability and availability, especially systems consisting on expensive components with highly variable availability times. The new approach resides in the thorough evaluation of the reliability and availability of the whole communication system in an incremental way starting at the network element level up to the entire network (system) level. This approach permits to identify the critical elements of the network and recommend the reliability corrections directed to the design of various network components and network elements or availability corrections directed primarily to the maintenance and sparing.