DRA: A dependable architecture for high-performance routers

Due to a relentless increase in the amount of missioncritical real-time traffic over a revenue-generating network, dependability has come forth as a vital measure for such a network. To prevent extended downtimes and loss of critical data, most commercial routers achieve faulttolerance by adding substantial redundancies for critical components. However, they often fail to utilize existing resources efficiently, unduly limiting their achievable dependability. To significantly improve the dependability of existing routers, we propose an efficient dependable architecture for high-performance routers, called dependable router architecture (DRA). DRA augments existing resources to create an additional level of interconnection across linecards for channeling resources from non-faulty linecards to linecards with faulty components. We analyze DRA using Markov models to assess its dependability improvement.