Risk-driven backbone management during COVID-19 and beyond

This post details Meta's risk-driven backbone management strategy implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. It introduces a simulation system that quantifies network risk using metrics for demand loss, availability, and latency stretch, based on failure scenarios and component characteristics (MTBF, MTTR). This system guided proactive capacity deployment and traffic priority management (downgrading QoS for latency-insensitive traffic) to maintain service SLOs under unprecedented stress. The research, presented at NSDI 2021, aims to help operators build more resilient networks.