Semi-Markov modeling of dependability of VoIP network in the presence of resource degradation and security attacks

Nowadays VoIP has become an evolutionary technology in telecommunications. Hence it is very important to study and enhance its dependability attributes. In this paper, an analytical dependability model for VoIP is proposed. The study is focused on analyzing the combined effects of resource degradation and security breaches on the Quality of Service (QoS) of VoIP, to enhance its overall dependability. As a preventive maintenance policy to prevent or postpone software failures which cause resource degradation, software rejuvenation is adopted. The dependability model is analyzed using semi-Markov process which captures the effects of non-Markovian nature of the time spent at various states of the system. The steady-state as well as the time-dependent analysis of the dependability model is presented. The steady-state results are obtained analytically, whereas the time-dependent results are obtained from simulation. Also, the analytical model is validated via simulation. The model analysis using a numerical example indicates the feasibility of our approach. Various dependability attributes such as availability, reliability and confidentiality are also obtained. A comparative study is also done between our proposed model and the existing models. & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.