A System Dynamics Based Simulation Model for Reliability Evaluation of Large Scale Information Systems

Peng Min-jing and Li Bo

Abstract

The work of reliability evaluation is critical to the availability of the large-scale information systems. The large-scale information system consists of many components. And the reliability depends on the internal structure, parameters and overall functions of the system, which is presented by the work flows of the components. The general approach of system analysis can’t cope with the problems of complexity and time-variance of the large-scale information systems. A reliability evaluation model is proposed based on system dynamics, which has advantages in dealing with the problems of complexity and time-variance of systems. By simulating the information flows of billing system of NGBOSS using the approach of system dynamics, the values of reliability are simulated and compared with the actual values, which proves that the proposed model is effective.